


Julie and the Jungle Girl

by DChan87



Series: Pōmaikaʻi Adventures [2]
Category: BURROUGHS Edgar Rice - Works, Original Work, Tarzan - All Media Types, Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Genre: Abusive Parents, American Character, Archery, Australia, Bechdel Test Pass, Bikinis, Canadian Character(s), Cruise Ships, Cults, Deconstruction, Disney References, Disney Songs, Established Relationship, F/M, Fantasy, Feminist Themes, Foster Care, Gen, Girl Power, Girl Saves Girl, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, Islands, Japanese Character(s), Japanese-Australian Character, Jungle Girl, Lampshade Hanging, New Zealand, Original Character(s), Polynesian, Primitive Culture, Rainforests, Reconstruction, Spears, Survival Training, Tarzan References, Uncharted Island, Washed ashore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 15:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DChan87/pseuds/DChan87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kimi Fujioka was suffering. She'd don so for too long under the thumb of her abusive foster family for too long, and often dreamed of meeting the famous Julie "The Jungle Girl" Vidic. She gets the opportunity when she falls off a cruise ship and washes ashore on Julie's island, only to find out being a jungle girl isn't all it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Being a jungle-dweller isn’t easy. In real life, it’s probably impossible.  
  
Okay, let’s not deny that wearing mascara and lipstick is ridiculous, but that’s not the only reason. The wild, especially a tropical rainforest, is not a very accommodating place. It doesn’t care if you fall out of a tree and break your arm, or get a life-threatening infection from a measly little scratch. We are so used to, and take our modern life for granted so much, that when we think of living in the wild, we tend to forget just how harsh nature can be. It’s pretty to look at, but let’s face it; there’s a reason it’s called “survival of the fittest”, a term which ONLY applies to nature, not civilization.  
  
Then again, that’s the reason the jungle fantasy genre is just that; fantasy.  
  
Fantasy is not bad, but gets a bad rap. People who like fantasy are stereotyped as losers who can’t or don’t want to deal with reality, or are nerds. Right, and Vin Diesel doesn’t play Dungeons & Dragons.  
  
Look, life is hard, and reality sucks. And because of that, people want to escape. But it’s always important to separate between fantasy and reality. Some folks can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality, and that’s where problems arise, especially when some mentally unstable dude can’t tell the difference between a shooter and reality. Now, there is not link between violent video games and violent actions, and there likely never will be, so let’s get that little disclaimer out of the way.  
  
But the point is, fantasy is fantasy. Reality is reality. Most people get the distinction. Some, who through various and complex reasons, cannot distinguish. Sometimes it’s their fault, sometimes it’s not.  
  
Our subject today is 16-going-on-17-year-old Kim Fujioka, a Japanese-Australian girl from Melbourne, Australia. Her parents are Kenji Fujioka, from Tokyo, and Aoi Nakajima, the daughter of Japanese immigrants to Melbourne, who met while at the University of Melbourne, fell in love, yada, yada, yada, Kenji became an Australian citizen, etc. And thus Kimi was born.  
  
Things were actually well and good for Kim in her early childhood. Kenji and Aoi genuinely loved each other and Kim, and thus they were a happy family. Kenji also happened to like American Tarzan movies, if only for the camp factor—the whole idea of some dude living in the wild and becoming buff like Tarzan was utterly ridiculous and unrealistic.  
  
It was when she was a little girl, that she first saw the Disney version of Tarzan. Being a little kid watching a Disney movie, of course she loved it. But something about the movie tapped into something deep within Kim. She didn’t know it at the time, but it was the first step in the direction her life was going to take.  
  
Now, the jungle adventure/opera genre is a pretty vanilla genre to begin with. It may have started with a little bit of unfortunate implications, but the real reason it appeals to westerners and by extension, Whities, is because it’s possible that it taps into some old, pagan ideal about humans and nature, or perhaps our inner animal.  
  
Western civilization has been removed from nature for centuries. Where it started, whether with the Greeks or Romans, is irrelevant. It’s not even just a western thing; China has been a civilization for far longer than any European civilization has existed, and of course, Mesopotamians and Egyptians. And let’s not get started on Judean civilization.  
  
And speaking of Judean, Christianity, itself a spin-off of Judaism, may have had a factor it this.  
  
Whatever. What matters is that humans have moved away from being well aware to their connection to nature to being pretty… not-so connected. Now, civilization isn’t a bad thing, the author happens to like civilization.  
  
Perhaps this deep-seeded desire to return to nature struck Kim like a bolt out of the blue (to paraphrase Disney). She dreamt of being like Jane or Tarzan, exploring the jungle wild and free. And when she heard there were people just like that who lived in the jungle.  
  
It sounded easy, you know? Just two people roughing it out, living freely with no civilized troubles that they know about, like Tarzan and Jane. In fact, it sounds kinda fun. Makes someone want to give it a try.  
  
Her interest only increased when she, by accident, acquired an issue of  _Cosmopolitan_  Australia. The featured article was about an American named Julie Vidic, who, at 23 years old, had already spent nearly two years as a jungle girl, the modern-day, real-life equivalent of Jane Porter. And seeing Julie for the first time in that magazine staring back at her, Kim was smitten with admiration at how this jungle girl—no, jungle  _woman_ -proudly carried herself.  
  
The way she held herself in those photos, you’d think she WAS Queen of the Jungle, or at least had the attitude, if not the title. Her poses were sexy, that’s for sure. But she never once posed in a way that would give the reader power over her, in fact the opposites. And the look on her face, with her fist on her hip, a coy, sly, sensual smile and a raised eyebrow, she looked at the camera as if to dare the reader to cross her.  
  
She was sexy, not sexualized, and she knew it. She proudly displayed her body; fit, toned, lean and mean, tanned, freckled and clad in the bare essentials, a standard-issue jungle girl outfit of an animal skin bra and loincloth that emphasized her hybrid human-savage appearance and personality. She not only embraced her sexuality, she OWNED it.  She radiated femininity, and she was beautiful, even without makeup. She was a sexy woman and damn proud of it.  
  
Kim could see that Julie had proudly taken the jungle girl title away from perverts who wanted a savage woman, but one they could control. The primal pride and power emanated from those photos. Perhaps that’s why from the words in the article, the camera crew perfectly understood that she was in command, and she would not be submissive to any perverted man. She may have a mate, but no one owned her. She was indeed a strong, powerful woman in control of her own body and sexuality. She could be naked (in fact the next page showed her without anything on, at least from the back) and still far more powerful than the other models.  
  
When executed improperly, jungle characters are symbols of white/European colonialism. The always-white jungle ruler is feared by the natives just for existing as if to reinforce the superiority of all things White. That of course, did not appeal to the  _Nisei_  Kim. What about Julie and Karza that appealed to her, were how they represented a deep-seated human desire for freedom and to return to the wild after centuries of civilization separated man from beast. And yet, tribal and pagan societies embraced those aspects of humanity, recognizing the link between human and animal. Humans ARE animals, after all. Some people forgot that. Some people, like Julie, embraced it and gave civilization a massive Middle Finger.  
  
She was no Aryan/White Supremacist wet dream. She wasn’t even blonde, blue-eyed or German, but a brown-haired, brown-eyed Serbian/Irish/Spanish and Finnish vixen. Perhaps instead she was the wet dream of a follower of anarcho-primitivism, but this was not about ideology. It was a lifestyle she emphasized in the article, pointing out that she was happier than she’d ever been and her reason for doing so was out of love for both the jungle and for her Tarzan-like boyfriend Kaitan, who was featured in  _Men's Health_.  
  
And Kim wanted to be just like her.  
  
And that’s just what happened when Kim found herself washed up on the beach of a strange island somewhere in the Pacific, with Polynesian tribespeople examining her to see if she was still alive. She didn’t know what the heck was going on, just that she was still alive, her parents were dead and that she was now an orphan.  
  
And she had no idea who was waiting for her.


	2. Washed Ashore

The next several minutes were a blur.  
  
In a way, of course, but mostly because Kim had no idea what was going on. She didn’t know what was going on, just that she felt wet, hot and her head hurt. Before long, a crowd had gathered around her. But she was dizzy and her head hurt like a kangaroo had kicked her with both feet. She tried to move, but someone placed their hand on her shoulder and gently moved her themselves, leaving Kim wondering who it was and what they were doing.  
  
She looked up at the clear, blue sky, hearing the surf washing against the shore while the crowd that had gathered around her looked down right at her. Someone put their finger in front of her eyes, which she followed, albeit with some difficulty. Then a light shone in her eyes and it made her want to close those eyes, because of the already-bright sky making it difficult to concentrate.  
  
“Hey,” a soft, American-sounding voice called out. Where was she? “Can you hear me?”  
  
“Yes,” she choked out.  
  
“How is she?”  
  
“I think she may have a concussion,” the American responded. “Hey, what’s your name?”  
  
“Kim,” she choked out.  
  
“Alright Kim, just hold still,” said the American. “We’re going to help you out. Do you know how you got here?”  
  
There wasn’t much she could remember, but what she could remember, it wasn’t pretty.  
  
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:  
  
“KIM! GET YOUR ARSE IN THIS ROOM, RIGHT NOW!!!”  
  
Kim sighed as she closed the magazine with Julie Vidic as the main feature and climbed off the bed. The cruise ship rocked just a little bit, making her stumble and try to regain her balance. Her foster brother laughed in the bed next to hers, a derisive and bratty laugh.  
  
“Oh, you’ve done it now, Kimi,” Jake laughed again. “You’re gonna be in so much trouble!”  
  
The temptation to argue with Jake crossed the 16-year-old’s mind, but she repressed that temptation and instead walked out of the room and into the stateroom next to her and her foster brother’s. Her foster parents sat on their bed, reading a book and magazine respectively. They both looked up at her, but only for about a second each and neither of them did it in unison. Whatever was on the pages of those books and magazine was far more important than their foster daughter.  
  
“The ship’s captain is going to be sitting at our dinner table this evening,” her foster father Henry said without even looking up from his book. “I’m going to need you to be on your best behavior. Do you understand?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” she said weakly.  
  
“I said, do you understand!?” his voice was more hostile and forcible.  
  
“Yes, sir,” she said weakly.  
  
“That’s a good girl,” her foster mother Joan said. “I love how she knows what to do.”  
  
“Of course, dear,” he replied. “Now then, go back to your room. And don’t let me catch you reading that rag about the savage girl, understand?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Kim replied, bowed and shuffled out of the room.  
  
“That whore,” she heard Henry say. “Playing Tarzan and showing off skin like that.”  
  
Kim ignored what he was saying and returned to her room, where she hid the magazine issue from Jake, but not before getting one last look at her idol’s picture before stashing it away. Kim may have been 16, but she understood sexuality enough to know that her foster father was dead wrong about Julie. Who doesn’t love a woman who’s comfortable in her own skin and owns her sexuality like a cool car? It also helps that Kim got some good sex education in school, even though Henry and Joan weren’t happy about how frank it was.  
  
“I saw that!” Jake said. “You looked at her, didn’t you?”  
  
“I didn’t!” Kim replied.  
  
“You’re gonna be in SO MUCH trouble!” Jake laughed.  
  
“Please don’t!” Kim pleaded. “I’ll do anything!”  
  
“WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE!?”  
  
“NOTHING!” Kim replied.  
  
“KIM WAS LOOKING AT THAT SAVAGE GIRL!!!”  
  
“HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO PUT THAT FUCKING RAG AWAY!?” Henry shouted.  
  
“I PUT IT AWAY!” Kimi replied.  
  
“DON’T TALK BACK TO ME!” He was silent on the other side of the wall. “Great! Now I’m the bad guy and it’s all your fault, Kimi!”  
  
“I’m sorry!” Kimi replied.  
  
“Good for you,” said Henry. “We’ll be going to dinner in an hour, and I want you on your best behavior, understand?”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“Cheater,” Jake, who was 10-years-old, muttered. “You got lucky.”  
  
He shoved Kim and grabbed some of her shoulder-length, black hair, but not before Kim pulled it out. Since Kim was in the midst of puberty, she was a bit on the awkward side, and that made it easy for Jake, Henry and Joan to torment her about it, as you’ll see in later chapters.  
  
Kim clenched her fist, but the derisive, shit-eating grin on Jake’s face made it impossible for her to retaliate. She knew what he’d do, and it wasn’t good. She clenched up again, remembering the punishment Henry thought up the last time she lashed out at Jake. Her school’s headmaster was so concerned, he called the police on Henry and Joan, but as you can see, she was still living with them.  
  
So Kim shuffled back over to the bed and flopped down, face-first onto it, and covered her ears while Jake turned the TV volume all the way up to the highest point, which made her cover her head to try and do her best to drown out the sound of the obnoxious cartoon that Jake was watching, as well as his obnoxious laughter.  
  
This had been going on and on for 4 years now. She’d rather be dead than deal with the family she lives with now.  
  
When it came time to go to dinner, the family dressed up and went down to the main dining hall where the captain, a veteran of the cruise ship industry named Omer Turan, a Turkish man, would spend the dinner with them. Henry, Joan and Jake, who were obviously white, were excited and wanted their children on their best behavior.  
  
The place was crowded, alright. This was one of the cruise line’s best dining halls, and just about everyone dressed to the sevens. Yes, the sevens; business casual. The men wore khakis and button-down shirts, while the women wore skirts and blouses. The hall itself served pan-Pacific cuisine, what with this being a cruise from Sydney to Hawaii, and the course would soon take them north to the Hawaiian Islands, where they would stay for a couple days while the ship refueled, restocked and re-equipped for the journey back to Sydney.  
  
They had already crossed the International Date Line and the Equator. They were now due south of the Hawaiian Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with nothing but open water between them. Although, they were close to the Kiribatian islands of Kirabati (PBBBT!) Napari. However, it would require them to make it all the way to Honolulu if anything bad happened.  
  
Kimi stopped and stared at all the people in the place, but her foster family kept her moving with a rather rude and rough nudge. The Nisei girl grumbled, but Joan kept shoving her along until they reached the buffet. The roasted pig on a spit looked really tempting to Kimi. She licked her lips and moved to get it, but Joan smacked her hand.  
  
“Don’t be rude,” she said. “Wait your turn.”  
  
Kimi was about to reply that she was in front of Joan in the line, but Joan shoved her to the back where she bumped into Jake. “Watch where you’re going!” the 10-year-old whispered as he shoved Kimi and pinched her backside, making her shudder and clench her fist and teeth, but Jake shoved her into the back.  
  
Kimi did eventually get the bits of pig she wanted and sat down with her family. They put on a wholesome image for everyone else right when the captain, dressed all fancy in his white tuxedo-like uniform, smiled and approached the family.  
  
The captain, a handsome man in his 50s, smiled as he said down with them. “What a fine family,” he said, his accent somewhat watered down, albeit only by being around people of different backgrounds for much of the past 30-something years.  
  
“Why, thank you, Captain,” said Henry.  
  
“I just want you to know that I may have to leave the table at some point this evening,” the captain said as he adjusted his white captain’s uniform. “We’ve picked up weather readings in the forecast that are favorable to a bad storm. I’m not too worried about the ship. From what I’ve experienced, I’ve been in worse, and it looks like it will not be too bad.”  
  
“Oh, well,” said Joan.  
  
“Better to be safe than sorry, though,” said Captain Turan. “So, please, introduce yourselves.”  
  
“I’m Henry, I’m a stockbroker in Melbourne.”  
  
“And I’m his wife, Joan. This is our foster son Jacob, such a handsome boy. And our foster daughter Kimi. Her parents were in a terrible accident.”  
  
“I’m sorry to hear that, Kimi,” said Captain Turan. “How is your new family?”  
  
A flicker of hesitation appeared in Kimi’s eyes, only to be squelched by a subtly-threatening expression on Henry’s face to her left. “I love them,” she said. “I’m glad they took me in.”  
  
“Ah well, that’s wonderful,” said Captain Turan. “I assume that you have a reputation to keep, Mr…”  
  
“Levin,” said Henry.  
  
“I forgot, my apologies,” said Captain Turan.  
  
“Apology accepted,” said Henry. “And yes, I do have a reputation to keep, but it is an easy one.”  
  
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I took both your children to see the bridge some time, do you?” Captain Turn asked. “You both will love it! And I’ll even let you control the ship if you’re both good!”  
  
“Did you hear that, Jake and  _Kim_?” Joan asked while subtly emphasizing Kimi’s name.  
  
“Splendid!” said Captain Turan. “Now then, getting back to the storm; I am concerned about it, but if we need to, there is an island not too far from here where we can stop.”  
  
“Kirabati?” asked Henry.  
  
“Yes, well, that is one option,” said Captain Turan. “Greystoke Island is not too far from our current location. I happen to know a couple of the researchers there, if we run into trouble they will help us reach it.”  
  
“Greystoke?” Henry asked.  
  
“That’s where Julie lives!” Kimi excitedly exclaimed, standing up from the table and nearly knocking her glass of milk over.  
  
“Julie who?” Captain Turan asked.  
  
“Kimi, behave yourself!” Henry hissed. “Oh, this jungle character she seems to like goes by that name.”  
  
Captain Turan thought about it for a good long moment but shrugged as he couldn’t think of her. “Greystoke has been an open secret amongst the shipping industry for some time now,” he said. “A few cruise ship captains have stopped there during vicious storms every now and then, but would not let anyone disembark. I think it was only three years ago that someone gave the coordinates to a fellow at the University of Auckland. Oh, now I remember! That Julie girl, she calls herself a jungle girl?” He smacked his head. “Oh silly me, I forgot! Yes, now I remember! She was part of that research team!”  
  
Henry chuckled, but said, “Oh dear, and here I was thinking she was an actress.”  
  
“You don’t believe in her?” Captain Turan asked. “Rumor has it, she stopped an evil spirit from conquering Greystoke.”  
  
“A ghost story!” Henry laughed.  
  
“It WAS real!” Kimi interrupted.  
  
“It seems silly, Captain,” Henry continued, “That we should be impressed with a girl playing Tarzan.”  
  
“Playing Tarzan is easy,” said Captain Turan. “BEING Tarzan is difficult. And I heard she was good at it. Is this true, Kimi?”  
  
For the first time it what seemed like a long time, Kimi was so excited to be asked a question, she nearly vomited everything she knew about the Californian jungle girl, but restrained herself and explained why she admired her, while subconsciously implying the abuse she’s but up with for the past four years at the hands of the Levin family. It made the forty-something Henry’s fist clench, for he could hear the subtle damnation of him, even if it slipped past Joan and Jake, and may have just been in Henry’s imagination, but Captain Turan listened intently.  
  
“Oh, what an overactive imagination!” Joan laughed.  
  
“What’s wrong with imagination?” Captain Turan replied.  
  
“Jungle girls? HA! Impossible!”  
  
“Except there’s one approximately, oh, 50 knots east of us.”  
  
“She gets it from her father,” said Henry. “He happened to like Tarzan movies.”  
  
“I don’t, but that’s his prerogative,” said Captain Turan. Really, Henry should know better than to go head-to-head on the existence of a jungle girl when his foster daughter had a magazine that ran a feature article on her in her stateroom and was arguing with Captain Turan, who knows the existence of the last uncharted island in the world.  
  
Then again, when you’re an abusive foster father…  
  
Kimi closed her eyes and wished that her mother was not killed and her father was not a human vegetable anymore.  
  
But Jake was sneering at her right next to her. The more Kimi tried to ignore him, the more he sneered.  
  
Unfortunately for Henry though, Captain Turan may have been at sea for 3 decades, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know at least a bit of what was going on. Part of it was that he could see the sneer on Jake’s lips, and the other part was that you don’t become Captain of a cruise ship unless you can read people… unless you’re the Captain of the Costa Concordia.  
  
Speaking of which, you’ll find no bigger critic of the bastard than Captain Turan was, or at least on this particular cruise line. In fact, the man insisted on background checks for every single captain in the line, including himself. Why not? He had nothing to hide! He was an honest sailor!  
  
“You need to keep that boy in check,” he said. “He looks like a troublemaker.”  
  
“What? Dear Jake? How could he?” Henry denied. “He’s my son, I raised him well, he’s no troublemaker! Isn’t that right, boy?”  
  
“Absolutely!” Jake replied.  
  
Kimi could only roll her eyes and shake her head, but that only made Jake kick her in the shin. “OW!”  
  
“What’s going on?” Captain Turan asked. He stood and looked over to see Jake pounding away at Kimi’s back, which made him stand up and pull the boy off of Kimi.  
  
At this point, Kimi got up and ran out of the dining hall.  
  
“Captain!” a sailor called out. “We noticed something on the radar. There’s a bad storm headed our way.”  
  
“I’ll be at the bridge as soon as I can,” said Captain Turan. “My apologies, but it seems I must attend to something. There is a storm coming, and we will try to navigate our way through it, inshallah. In the meantime, you two need to discipline your son.”  
  
The Captain let go of Jake and hurried out of the dining hall and back to the bridge to ensure the safety of his passengers.  
  
Kimi ran all the way back to her ocean-view stateroom in a mess of tears, drawing confused looks from just about everyone who saw her. It took a while for her to get back because she got lost and in her haste, didn’t remember where the room was, until she calmed down enough to find her way back to her room, at which point she slid the keycard in and threw herself onto the bed where she cried herself to sleep and almost dry of tears.  
  
The next half an hour were a blur, which may have been the result of whatever happened to her head, and so were the next several hours.  
  
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:  
  
“Here comes a stretcher!” Kimi snapped back to the present. Someone had a hold of her head and another person came by with the stretcher. Another man shouted in another language, at which point some of the tribespeople rushed to her side and helped to gently lift her up onto the stretcher. Then they lifted the stretcher and carried her away. She could still hear what was going on, though.  
  
“How is she?” A woman with a New Zealand inflection asked.  
  
“Not sure yet,” said an Australian-sounding man. “From the looks of it, she has a concussion and she seems to be suffering from mild exposure.”  
  
“Get her to the treatment tent as soon as possible,” said the New Zealander.  
  
“Right away.”  
  
Kimi closed her eyes again and when they opened up again, she was in a completely different place. This time it was dark, or at least relatively dark, unlike the beach (obviously). She was inside. And on a bed. And she must have been hooked up to something, too, because an IV extended out from her arm. And it was dark, too, so much so that the small glimpse of light outside was so bright she could barely even see outside. And even that hurt her eyes, so she looked away.  
  
She looked around and tried to sit up, but a splitting headache, combined with a need to do a liquid laugh put an end to that.  
  
The vomit had a hint of the pig she had last night, and there were still chunks of it in the—okay, that’s disgusting. She quickly turned away in time to see someone stepping into the tent. “G’Day,” she said. “Sorry about the set up.”  
  
“Where am I?” Kimi asked.  
  
“Oh dear, we haven’t finished your concussion test, have we?” the woman asked. “Do you remember what happened?”  
  
Kimi shook her head and tried to wipe her mouth off, but the woman wiped her lips.  
  
“Oh, that’s not good,” said the woman. “Did you—never mind, I can smell it. Hold on. Can someone please clean up the spill in the treatment tent? Thank you.” She sighed, threw her head back and smacked her forehead. “Duh. Oh, well. You’re in the treatment tent of the main camp of the Pan-Pacific Greystoke Research Expedition.”  
  
The name “Greystoke” registered with Kimi, but for the life of her, she couldn’t quite remember why.  
  
“We found you on the beach with what was left of your wallet. Your student ID said your name is Kim Fujioka. Is that right?”  
  
“Yes,” said Kimi.  
  
“Where’s your school? I haven’t seen the ID yet.”  
  
“Melbourne,” said Kimi.  
  
“Oh, you’re from Mel-Bun!” the woman replied. “Sorry, I always think of hot buns, and not man buns, whenever I think of Melbourne! Anyway, I had a really wonderful scientific conference there once and—oh, forgive me. I forgot to introduce myself! My name’s Gina Robinson, I’m from Auckland.”  
  
“Auckland?”  
  
“Right-o!” Gina replied. “I’m a teacher at the University of Auckland, and I’m the leader of this expedition.”  
  
“Expedition?”  
  
“Oh, right, sorry, the… concussion,” said Gina. “Let me get down to it: We’ve been here for almost two years, studying this island’s unique flora and fauna. Part of what makes this jungle island so special is the fact that, aside from the birds, insects and fruit bats, every single animal is quote-un-quote, ‘invasive’. But, here’s the special part and it’s what makes me so giddy: They’ve all formed a balance ecosystem!”  
  
“I’m… sorry, I can’t…”  
  
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Gina. “I’m a scientist, so I always get excited by science-y stuff. Basically, we can learn a lot from this island. Also, those people who found you earlier were from the Teo Tribe; a native, Polynesian culture. You happened to wash ashore at one of their main villages on the western shore of the island. There’s three tribes here; the Teo, the Paea and the Pele. But, the Paea are all dead now.”  
  
“Gina, I’m not sure if that’s going to help,” said the man who was also entering the tent. He looked Maori. In fact, he was Maori, just by the bit of tattoo that could be seen on his arm, a design that Kimi recognized from a vacation to New Zealand she and her real parents took when she was 9.  
  
“Oh, John, I didn’t know you were listening,” Gina nervously laughed. “Kim, I’d like to introduce you to John Tamou, or should I say, LEFF-tennant John Tamou.”  
  
“Lt. John Tamou,” said the Maori man. “ _Retired_  Australian Army Lieutenant, of course. Apologies for Gina, she tends to get excited about science. Now listen: We found you washed ashore on the beach in tattered clothes, disoriented and apparently suffering from a concussion, exposure AND dehydration. Why dehydration is beyond me, but that’s medicine, for you. All we found on you was your wallet and your phone. Unfortunately, your phone is… waterlogged, to say the least, and your school ID doesn’t have your home address on it. It does have your school address on it, though. So what happened?”  
  
“I don’t remember,” Kim groaned.  
  
“Right, concussion,” said John. “Unfortunately, we already called the school and it seems they’re off on holiday. We did find a cruise ship debit card, so I believe we can accurately say that you fell off a cruise ship.”  
  
Kimi grabbed her head as she tried to remember what happened that made her wash ashore. She knew there was a storm coming, and she ran out of the dining hall, but other than that, she couldn’t quite remember what happened. But in a way, she was relieved. Henry, Jake and Joan were out of sight, she was on a jungle island and Henry, Jake and Joan were out of sight. That was really the biggest reason why she was relieved. Okay, she was alive, but she could not contact them, they could not contact her and unless the people here got a hold of the cruise line, she was going to be here for a while now.  
  
“Okay,” she said.  
  
“I think she’s relieved,” said John. “I could see it in her eyes.”  
  
“Listen, Kimmie,” said Gina. “We’re going to have to contact the Australian government and the cruise line to let them know we found you.”  
  
The relief was gone. She gulped as she thought about returning to them. And after what happened last night, or at least the parts she remembered, their wrath would be far worse than anything she had dealt with before. Panic came over her, and it was so obvious that John, who was already a people person, could see it plain as day.  
  
“I think we should let her stay here for now,” John whispered into Gina’s ear. “She doesn’t look happy about going back. Must be something wrong at home.”  
  
“What would we do without you, John?” Gina asked. “Alright, we’re going to let you stay for the time being. But, we’re going to keep you here mainly to make sure you’re alright and let you recover. Understand?”  
  
“Yes,” Kimi replied.  
  
“Good!” said Gina. “Now then, what do you want to watch?  _My Little Pony_?  _Spongebob_? How about a Disney movie?”  
  
“Do you have  _Tarzan_?”  
  
“The Disney version, or…”  
  
“Forget it, she probably means the Disney version,” said John. “Well, thank God for Netflix, I don’t know what we’d do.”  
  
The obviously-Maori retired lieutenant stood up and began to walk out, but stopped as someone else came in and whispered something into John’s ear. “Oh, alright,” he said as he turned to Gina. “She’s on her way right now.”  
  
“She is?” Gina asked. “Huh. I wonder what she wants.”  
  
“She probably heard about Kim,” said John. “Maybe she just wanted to see how she was doing.”  
  
“It’s a fair cop,” Gina sighed. “I’ve been meaning to talk to her. I’m getting tired of all these calls from stupid magazines. Bloody  _Cosmo_  and even  _Playboy_  called! What am I, her fucking agent or something?”  
  
“Well, she doesn’t have a phone, so—”  
  
“I know, I know!” Another voice interrupted. Kim slightly perked up at the sound of the American-sounding voice. “You don’t have to complain!”  
  
“Oh, speak of the devil, look who’s here ahead of schedule!”  
  
Kimi struggled until she finally sat up and her jaw dropped and eyes widened. There, standing in the entrance, was her idol, Julie “The Jungle Girl” Vidic. In the flesh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we see a reason for why someone would want to become a jungle girl, even if it is only ONE option out of possibly hundreds. But yeah, Kimi's got a pretty bad family she's got to live with. How she ended up with Henry, Jake and Joan will be addressed, of course. And yeah, expect the chapters to be longer than 2,500 words, since I want to increase my word count with this and turn the JtJG series into a series of novella-lentgh projects. Anyway, I hope you like this!
> 
> Disclaimer: This is in no way a complete condemnation of the foster family system in either Australia or anywhere else. This particular family is just not fit for fostering anyone.


	3. Kimi Meets Her Idol

_One to one-and-a-half-hours earlier_ ,

Julie “The Jungle Girl” Vidic lounged in the treehouse she shared with her boyfriend/mate Kaitan, reading _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_. It took all of her inner strength not to get angry at the mistreatment of Native Americans by the US Government, but then again, that’s probably what the whole point of the book was in the first place. Really, she was inching her way through the book chapter by chapter while trying to keep herself calm. Once she finished the chapter, she shut the book with a “FWOMP” and put it away to pull out a _Harry Potter_ book.

It’s okay to be angry at systematic injustices, but it’s also okay to not be constantly enraged. Anger at injustice is what prompts meaningful change, but as you can see on certain places like Tumblr, that constant anger is bad for everyone. There’s better ways at making change in social justice than yelling at people for being ignorant about the issues, and using buzzwords that will only alienate potential allies. The author himself cares deeply about the struggles of Native Americans, and wants something done about it. He just doesn’t know what to do, and it concerns him.

But getting back to Julie, she opened the first book, _Sorcerer’s Stone_ , and started reading from the beginning, concerning the strange goings-on in Vernon Dursley’s life. Knowing what happens later in the series, she could sit back and enjoy how much denial Dursley was in at the strange cat and the flying—oh wait, Mr. Dursley never saw Hagrid’s flying motorcycle.

But she also had to get past the sad and horrendous treatment Harry had to go through at the hands of the Dursleys. Whatever little bits of comeuppance Dudley received over Harry’s younger years were strangely cathartic, even though they were rather unrealistic, especially considering the circumstances Harry grew up in.

Julie on the other hand, grew up in a nice household with a loving family, both immediate and extended. At times it made the 23-year-old miss them dearly. Okay, she always missed them, but knowing she was happy and they were happy for her, there was no guilt involved. Still, it’d be nice to go back to SoCal and see them again before returning to her new home on Greystoke. It’s just that she was worried that Kaitan, who’d been away from civilization for so long, might be a little… caveman-ish for their taste, so maybe she should just invite them back.

In all this thinking, she sadly lost her place when she closed the book, thinking about how to get them to Greystoke. Then she realized what she did and quickly hurried back to the page she was originally on, which was page 50, the page where Hagrid drops the famous bombshell line, “Harry—yer a wizard”.

OOOOH, that made her so giddy every single time she read that line that she restarted the chapter just so she could feel that giddy tingling her spine, a sensation that she never got tired of.

The bookshelf she sat next to was a veritable library, containing books she ordered off Amazon. The worn-out ones, which stuck out like a sore thumb—mostly Steinbeck, Tarzan and educational books—helped Kaitan keep his English-language skills while he grew up in the jungle and amongst the Teo.

Believe it or not, but jungle-dwellers have a lot of free time. And, not having any use for TV or Internet (unless absolutely vital, like the blog she keeps up), those books make for great entertainment at any time of day.

She finished reading the chapter and closed the book with a “FWOMP”, put a bookmark after page 60 and got up to put it back on the left side of the bookcase, where most of her books were. In fact, her name was carved at the top of the left side of the bookcase. She put it at the beginning of the Harry Potter series, of course, which had its own shelf.

When she stood up, you could get a true appreciation of her. She was slender, yes, but she was also fit and toned without a trace of arm or leg fat and a toned stomach and average bust size for someone her age. So she kinda looked like a women’s MMA fighter. Her complexion was fair, but with some tan and freckles, a result of living in the jungle, although she did wear sunscreen every now and then to prevent skin cancer. She fluffed out some of her unkempt, shoulder-blade length brown hair, which framed a slender face, itself a framing brown eyes.

And for now, she was topless, but only because of the heat. It’s a good idea to wear the standard-issue jungle girl outfit of an animal skin bikini and loincloth, what with the heat and humidity. But sometimes it just feels nice to peel that sweaty thing off and get some air. Also, it’s really good for the skin.

Another sound, a Tarzan-esque yell pierced through the jungle morning, which made the jungle girl roll her eyes. Kaitan was coming back.

The Jungle Dude swung on his vine and landed on the front porch of their treehouse, carrying a deer carcass and dropping it on the porch. “Dinner!” he said.

“ _Bloody_ dinner,” she said.

He laughed and kissed her forehead, and she hijacked that to kiss him on the lips. Turning around, you could see that her loincloth covered her entire rear end.

Kaitan placed his bow and quiver on the peg next to their front door as he carried the buck into the treehouse.

Kaitan was not some over-muscled beefcake Heracles-wannabe, he was lean and mean, too, but the muscle was more for gymnastics, rather than weightlifting. His complexion was also slightly tanned, although that tan was permanent, a result of living on Greystoke for the past 7 years. Yes, he was 23, just like her.

His hair reached down to his shoulders and was more disheveled than Julie’s, although the way she roughly grabbed his hair and growled like a dog in heat made him laugh. Yeah, she like it that way. And his hair was brown, too, and so where his eyes. And don’t expect some lantern jaw of justice, either, his face was also slender. He was kind of like Tarzan if Tarzan had the same weight and height, about 5’11”, 170 lbs. And yes, the Tarzan loincloth was there.

“Any difficulty?” Julie asked while she grabbed her now-dry and clean brown-colored top before Kaitan took it and tied the strings together at her neck and the middle of her back. “Thanks, sweetie,” she said.

“No problem,” he replied. “Ugh, my soles are sweaty.” He wiped his bare soles on the wood.

“What were you doing?”

“Watching from some of the rocks in the grasslands,” he said as he got to work on cutting up the deer. “Can you help me out, please?”

“Sure,” she replied as she drew her Bowie knife and helped him skin and cut the deer up.

“As you can see, I caught this one in the back,” he said while pointing at the arrow sticking out from its back at a sharp angle. “I almost had him right between the eye, but something startled it.”

“What did it sound like?”

“A human cry,” said Kaitan.

“Those guys,” Julie growled.

There was some group—that the both of them swore was a cult—running around the island, making some trouble for the Pele, the Village of the Exiled, and some of the tribe-less citizens of Greystoke. They even went after some of the researchers, although harassing modern scientists armed with guns isn’t a good idea. They PROBABLY taught the attackers a lesson, if they were able to catch them.

Unfortunately, tracking the group is nearly impossible.

“Probably,” said Kaitan. “Those guys are a pain in the ass.”

The frustration seeped from Julie’s face as she rubbed it and grimaced while sitting down next to the deer carcass. “I swear, those guys are gonna be the end of me,” she said. “First that RF fucker, now these guys. Why do we keep attracting the weirdoes?”

“Hey, come on,” he said as he sat next to her to wrap his arm around her shoulder. “We’ll get them, don’t worry.”

His adorable comforting look was enough to make her smile at least a little bit, so the Californian kissed the Manitoban’s cheek and went back to taking care of the deer carcass. “By the way, things are still a bit messy after the storm, so if you’re going out, be careful,” he said to her nodding.

Depending on the plans, some of it would be smoked, frozen, turned into jerky or a combination of all three. Sacks of nuts and cheese hung from the small “kitchen”, right next to two utility belts custom made for either one. A sword, which belonged to Julie, hung next to those utility belts. The refrigerator sat in the corner, where they kept their frozen meats and veggies, but nothing pre-packaged like you’d find in a modern house. Powering this was a solar panel on the roof.

You can take the girl out of civilization, but you can’t take civilization out of the girl. Balance is the key.

Kaitan carefully cut the meat away from the carcass the same way the Teo removed meat from other animals. As he was doing this, he heard the radio static. Curiosity piqued and he got up to listen to the conversation over at the HAM radio where he heard an interesting conversation.

“Huh,” he said. “Someone’s over at the researcher camp. Apparently… they were found washed ashore earlier.”

“Are you serious?” Julie asked. “Oh, SWEET!” Now her interest was piqued, and she ran out into onto the porch, leaped and swung away on the vines before Kaitan knew what was going on.

“I hate it when she does that,” he sighed. But then again, he smiled admirably, since that spontaneity is part of the reason he loves her.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Normally, we’d go into great detail about Julie swinging on vines, but we’re strapped for words. So instead, we’ll skip ahead to when Julie reached the research camp. She ran into one of the guards as he was on patrol, and nearly startled him into pointing his gun at her.

“How can you swing on those things?” he asked.

“I’m a jungle girl,” she laughed. “It’s part of the job!”

“Maybe bathing should be part of the job,” he said, earning a middle finger from her.

She came across another guard, who pointed her in the direction of the medical tent. As she approached, she could hear a conversation taking place.

“…ese calls from stupid magazines. Bloody  _Cosmo_  and even  _Playboy_  called! What am I, her fucking agent or something?”

Oh, Gina.

“Well, she doesn’t have a phone, so—”

“I know, I know!” she groaned. “You don’t have to complain!”

“Oh, speak of the devil, look who’s here ahead of schedule!” Gina placed her fists on her hip, which only made Julie a little embarrassed.

“Sorry!” she said while turning to the new guest. The teenage, Japanese-looking girl struggled to sit up in bed, gazing at her like she was a goddess.

“Hi!” Julie said. “I’m Julie, it’s nice to meet you! What’s your name?”

“Kim,” she said. “Kim Fujioka.”

“Where are you from, Kim?”

“Melbourne,” she replied.

“Oh, you’re from Australia?” Julie asked, and Kimi nodded. “That’s so cool! I’ve never been to Melbourne—I mean, I’ve been to Brisbane, but—haha, listen to me!”

“Oh, Julie,” Gina muttered.

“So, how’d you get here?” the Jungle Girl asked.

“I don’t know,” said Kimi.

“We do know she was on a cruise,” said Gina. “We found a cruise ship ID card in her wallet, or at least what was left of it.”

“So she fell overboard, huh?” Julie asked. “Do you remember how, Kimi?”

“We don’t know, because she doesn’t remember,” said Gina. “She has a concuss—”

“I was talking to Kim,” Julie interrupted.

“Alright,” Gina shrugged. “Just trying to help.”

“So how old are you?” Julie continued.

“Sixteen,” said Kim.

“Have you gotten your driver’s license yet?” Julie asked.

Kim shrugged and now it was safe for Julie to turn to Gina. “If she did, things would be easier for us,” she said. “We’d have her address and we’d have her out of here as soon as we can. We did call her high school, buuut, they don’t release student information to strangers, even if they do have them. We have yet to call the cruise line—actually, John, have someone call the cruise line, and let them know she’s here.”

“DON’T!” Kimi shouted, drawing Julie and Gina’s heads to her.

“Why not?” Julie asked.

“I…”

“If you don’t have a good reason, then why’d shout like that?” Gina asked.

“It’s because…” It was now or never; either return to her abusive foster family or stay on the island with her idol. It should have been a hard decision, but someone dealing with abuse and has been given a chance to escape isn’t going to find it hard. “I finally got to meet Julie!”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you too,” the jungle girl in question replied.

“No, no, sorry,” Kim said. “I’ve been dying to meet you since I read the Cosmo story.”

“Oh, great,” Julie muttered.

“Yeah, a fangirl!” Gina laughed. “Notice me, Julie-senpai!”

“You looked so cool in those pictures!” Kim continued while ignoring Gina and making Julie blush. “And then I read how you loved it, and I wanted to be like you!”

“You WHAT!?”

By now, Gina was howling with laughter, making Julie blush a deeper shade of red.

“Why did I agree to that interview?” Julie asked.

Because in the text itself, it mentioned that Julie initially declined, but all it took was some flattery and praise of her physique to get her to agree to the interview.

“W-what’s a girl her age doing reading _Cosmo_!?” Julie sputtered. But Gina gave Julie a raised eyebrow and a little smirk, making the Jungle Girl look away with another deep-red blush.

“Did I…”

“She was reading _Cosmo_ when she was thirteen,” Gina joked.

“I did NOT!”

“The, the thing said you’re 172 cm tall and 63-and-a-half kilo—”

“I DON’T NEED TO KNOW EVERY LITTLE DETAIL!” Julie embarrassedly shouted. “Alright, forget it—what do you want with me? I mean, from! From!”

“I want… I want you to train me in the ways of the jungle!”

Julie nearly fainted and Gina had to excuse herself because she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. Even John couldn’t help himself. Kimi sat on the bed, unaware/oblivious as to why everyone was laughing so hard. She wasn’t stupid, but she didn’t understand why everyone was laughing. “Why are you laughing?” she asked.

“An apprentice!” Gina seemed to respond, even though she was teasing the Jungle Girl.

“Oh, Spirits,” Julie shuddered. “Are you sure? ‘Cuuuz, jungle life isn’t easy.”

Kimi nodded and Gina snorted. “I’m sure!”

“Uh, didn’t you read in the article that I almost DIED once or twice?”

“Yeah,” said Kimi.

“At least she knows what she’s getting into,” said John.

“Come on, what’s wrong?” Gina asked. “Afraid she’s gonna be impatient?”

“Among other things,” said Julie.

“I kept reading that article because I thought you were so cool!” Kimi continued while ignoring Gina and John’s teasing. “I wanna be WILD and FREE, I wanna swing from vines and DIVE into pools and run with the animals!”

“That’s exactly what you do!” Gina teased.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Julie asked. “You don’t just BECOME a jungle girl, I’m still getting used to it! Hell, I just had to get antibiotics last month! It’s not as easy as referring to yourself in the third person!”

“Kimi ready!” she said. “Kimi want to be like Julie!”

“Fuck,” Julie whispered. “Stop laughing, Gina.”

“Gina too entertained to stop,” said Gina. “Gina think Julie laugh at herself and not take jungle life seriously.”

“You can stop now,” Julie growled.

“John concur,” he said.

“Julie not want talk like George,” she said. “Julie want talk like intelligent human being.”

“Julie teach Kimi?”

“Stop talking like idiot and MIGHT have deal,” said Julie. “SPIRITS, I need to stop before I kill more brain cells.”

“Okay, I’ll stop,” said Kimi.

“Okay, first lesson,” said Julie. “In the wild, there are no rules. Got that?”

“No rules! Got it!” Kimi said. “Wait, what?”

“It’s the WILD,” said Julie. “I tried to explain that to some dumb redneck right-wing survivalists two weeks ago and they didn’t make it a week before they went all _Lord of the Flies_ because they had some stupid idealized view of the jungle.”

Kimi wasn’t stupid. She nodded her head, imagining some rednecks trying to rough it out and turning cannibal just days later. The image wasn’t pretty. And it made her shudder.

“You get the idea. GOOD,” said Julie. “Second, no makeup. You’ll never be able to put any on. Third, it’s not easy. Four: don’t blame me if you fail.”

“Did you honestly think she thought it would be easy?” Gina asked.

“I blame Katy Perry,” said Julie. “Worst. Music video. EVER. Made it look like a walk in the park, THEY SHOULDA ASKED ME FOR—sorry.”

“It’s your opinion,” said Gina.

“Now where was I? Oh, yeah! Fifth, and this is a question: If you decide to become a jungle girl and live in the wild, then that means you will most likely never get to experience modern civilization again. That means you’ll never go to concerts with your friends, you’ll never get to graduate high school, and you may never see your friends and family again. Are you SURE you want to do this? Now before you answer,” she stood up, “I am going to let you recover from this concussion and let you think your decision over. Meanwhile, I’m going to do the same. Remember, you can quit at any time and return to Australia if you feel you can’t continue.

“Do you understand that part?”

“Yes,” said Kimi.

“Good,” said Julie. “Again, I’m going to give you time to think things over.” With that, Julie turned and walked out of the tent.

Any help Kimi was hoping for on Gina’s end was for naught because Gina shook her head as if to tell her this was her decision and hers alone, which is exactly what it was. And it was the same with John as he stood up to follow Julie.

“By the way,” the Maori Australian Army veteran asked. She turned around. “Kaitan mentioned someone—”

“Yeah,” said Julie. “I THINK it’s them, but I don’t know.”

“We could hear them last night,” said John. “We’ve been looking in the infrared. We THINK we picked them up.”

There wasn’t much Julie could say and she just exchanged a look with him. Then she turned away and left the camp to return home and help Kaitan with the deer.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Torches blazed in the night. The new member would be initiated tonight.

Their monstrous tiki masks faced the south, towards their new member. She wore nothing but the binds covering her eyes and the lei around her neck. Two male members, also naked, held her by the waist and wrists, keeping her steady and secure. Her lips pursed and her teeth bit those lips while her hands gripped her chaperones tighter. She waivered from side-to-side, but the two men helped her keep her balance and footing.

“Careful,” said the chaperone to her left. “Spread your legs.”

The woman nodded and did as she was told. Her guides gently led her towards the end of the tunnel, where a man sat, surrounded by naked and scantily-clad women. The girl was placed in front of the “throne” and given a guano bowl to drink, which she swallowed in one gulp.

They waited for a couple minutes while the girl sat naked in front of the leader. Then one of the chaperones carefully removed the blindfold from the girl’s eyes so she could behold the image in front of her, and it was like communicating with the Gods.

She held out her hands to the leader, who took them and kissed them both, making her shudder and twist in sensual ways as if she was blessed. She was in fact, blessed, and she was undergoing the initiation ritual to become a member of the cult.

As the Spirit Water flowed through her, she danced to the rhythm of the drums, chanting the holy prayers that would become her beliefs. She was unafraid of what the Water was doing to her, instead welcoming it. Beautiful colors swirled before her eyes, replacing the torches and visions of beasts and their God danced before her. They watched intently, proud that their newest initiate had embraced the faith that soon, all would follow.

When it ended, the girl fell before the leader and beheld his holy glory. “I pledge my allegiance to you, O Glorious One,” she said. “I pledge my life and service to Our Faith. And I pledge to follow as a disciple!”

He patted her on the head, smiled and raised his arms to the crowd. “She is one of us now!” he declared. The crowd cheered the leader’s declaration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Kimi meets her idol! Unfortunately for Julie. No, I do not take this series too seriously, and I never will. But that's not a bad thing. I just want to have a little fun while writing it, and I want you, the reader, to have as much fun reading it.
> 
> I switched the magazine from Women's Health to Cosmo because I thought it'd be funnier.


	4. Julie? A Teacher?

“AN APPRENTICE!? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Julie would’ve socked Kaitan’s jaw if she didn’t love him so much. Actually, she probably should, anyway.

“Yeah, AND?” she asked while grabbing her right wrist to keep it from reaching out and grabbing Kaitan’s hair.

Kaitan couldn’t and didn’t answer. He was laughing way too hard and Julie wasn’t happy about it one bit. So she stomped away, hoping that the sound of her bare feet slamming the wood would drown out her boyfriend’s laughter. She was still pouting when she sat down on the reading chair with her legs pulled up to her chest and arms crossed, refusing to even speak to him until he realized his mistake.

Which he did. He stopped laughing and walked over to her to put his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought it was funny.”

“You didn’t have to apologize,” she said with an eye roll. “If anything, it’s me. I overreacted.”

“Did Gina laugh about it?” Kaitan asked.

“A lot.”

“Well then, it’s too funny not to laugh about.”

“I thought you were done laughing about it,” she said.

“And I thought you were the one who didn’t like when I’m so serious about it,” he said, drawing another eye-roll.

“Am I helping myself?”

“Not really,” he said. “So… what do you think?”

“Well, I think she should reconsider,” said Julie. “I told her she might never see her friends again—”

“Just like what I said,” he added.

She opened her mouth to object, but in a way, he had a point, and she thought back to nearly 2 years ago, when she was still new to the place.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

“Huli,” the wild-haired Jungle Dude repeated. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

“Positive!” she replied without a second thought.

The Jungle dude sighed while the Teo tribespeople went about their daily lives. To everyone else, it was a normal, lovely day, with temperatures in the upper-seventies (Fahrenheit) and perfect, sunny and breezy conditions. It was a good day to go fishing, as some of the men, grabbing spears and nets, were about ready to do with another tribesman announcing the plan for the day. Right next to them, one of the fishermen’s wives chopped a coconut in half to take a sip from and hand a mango over to their son, who gobbled the fruit up.

No one really paid attention to the two palemen talking on the edge of the village. In fact, none of them really cared that the newer palewoman was so determined to stay with her Jungle Man that she’d already fashioned a jungle animal skin outfit, even though she’s set to return to paleman land within the coming weeks.

“But the semester’s almost over, isn’t it?” Kaitan asked.

“You don’t have to remind me,” she sadly said as she turned away from the Jungle Dude and pulled her legs up to her chest and then laid her head on his shoulder. “It’s just… I just love this place so much, and I didn’t—“

“Didn’t expect to fall for me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she replied. “But I want to become a jungle girl!”

“It’s not easy,” he replied while drawing a circle in the dirt with his knife. The 21-year-old wanted to teach Julie how to live like him, he really did. But a million thoughts and doubts were flooding his mind, most of them having to do with whether or not she really was up to the task, in over her head or acting on a whim.

“Have you thought about it?” he asked again.

“A lot, actually,” she said while digging her bare toes into the dirt. From the looks of things, she wasn’t bluffing. But even so, making the same decision Jane Porter made isn’t something you make on a whim, you have to think about it, sometimes for a long, LONG time. But from her expression, he could see that she had been thinking about it, at least for a while now. The way she placed her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee told him that there was more she was thinking about. But then, after what seemed like hours, she looked up at him with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows.

“I’m not changing my mind,” she said. “I want to stay here.” She didn’t have to say anything, because he

“But… why?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked as if she was both insulted and actually curious about as to why he would ask this question, in more than one way. “…” She’d opened her mouth and closed it again, bringing her hand up to her mouth to think about it. “I think that… this place is so beautiful. I mean, it’s like, one of the last untouched wildernesses in the entire WORLD. There’s something about this place that just DRAWS me to it—and don’t say the jungle speaks, that’s silly. But, it’s like… I want to try something new, and…” Kaitan—er, Kaitan, and as he shall be referred to from now on, because the author believes that is a better name than Kaitan—didn’t bother to speak to or over her, so instead he began to get up.

“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” he said as he stood up and walked away.

Two days later, she told him that she loved him and wanted to stay on the island.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

“Did we just have a flashback?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was reminded of the time you decided to stay.”

“I don’t regret it,” she said.

“And is it possible Kimi might not regret it?”

“Kai, if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that everyone’s experience is different,” she said. “I’ll probably put that up on my Tumblr page,” she said again. “And yes, I’m still using it—oh, wait, you don’t want me to differ to anyone, do you?”

“Nope,” Kaitan replied.

“Fine, I gotta decide on my own,” Julie replied.

With a smile, Kaitan leaned over and kissed the Jungle Girl on the forehead before getting up and walking to the ladder, and once we was upstairs, she could hear the sound of him adjusting the bed.

She in turn adjusted herself in her seat to think about Kimi’s request. Certainly, it was possible that in the heat of seeing someone famous, Kimi blurted out her desire to become a jungle girl. Perhaps Julie would have to emphasize the fact that it took her _months_ to decide whether or not to give up her old life, a decision she sometimes grappled with to this very day, as evidenced by the note next to the candle, the words “should I go home?” scribbled on them.

For the first time in months, Julie was facing a crisis of her life in the jungle, and it made her squirm and groan uncomfortably until she got up and walked out of the house and into the dark jungle night. There, she sat down on the porch, put her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees before feeling her legs. “Ah, I need to shave,” she said to herself. But, that short distraction was just that, and she mentally chastised herself for getting off-track.

“Fuck this,” she said.

The fresh scent of the jungle, no matter how relaxing, would have to wait until another time. Right now she was just too stressed to think. And she was too tired to BE stressed. It’s a little contradictory, but that’s how she felt right now.

Kaitan was in bed when she flopped down on her stomach after having to move the mosquito net and removing her outfit. “I take it something’s wrong?” Her jungle dude boyfriend asked.

“Take a guess,” she replied.

“I don’t have to,” he replied. “Here’s what I think you can do: Sleep on it, and then go to the camp tomorrow morning to see if she’s actually serious about it.”

“Okay,” Julie replied.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

“You’re serious about this?” Gina’s disbelief was as plain as day and her perplexed expression reinforced that.

Kimi did not hesitate to nod. “Of course,” she replied. “Why?”

Gina tried to think of a way to say it without insulting either Kimi’s intelligence or her imagination and naturally, it was a bit difficult to do. Gina herself was pretty imaginative as a lass growing up in Auckland, oftentimes imagining herself as some world-saving scientist or superhero. Her mother would usually play along. Although the differences between wanting to be a world-saving scientist/superhero and being a jungle girl are that you don’t have to give up your previous life in order to become a scientist/superhero.

And her stubbornness seemed to be a trait she shared with Julie. Seriously, those two could become like sisters or something.

“I just think… you should think about it more,” said Gina. “You have until you’re recovered from the concussion, you should take that time to think.”

Several moments of silence passed while Kimi just stared at Gina. It weirded Gina out, so she cleared her throat. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Kimi sputtered.

“Listen, Kimi,” Gina said as she scooted the chair closer to her. “I don’t want to sound like I’m insulting you, but it might just be a good idea to seriously consider this whole jungle girl thing. Julie had several months to think about her decision and didn’t have any regrets.”

Kimi didn’t once bother to answer. So she tried a different plan of attack. “How’s school going?”

“I’m not popular,” said Kimi.

“Tell me about it,” said Gina. Gina hadn't been the most popular in high school. She was a bit on the plain side, but prided herself on being attractive for a scientist. That same aura surrounded Kimi, and not just that. One of the reasons Gina could become the leader of a group of scientists was because she was also a people person, and could get a few ideas just from looking at someone. And from the looks of it, Kimi's edgy behavior was the result of a bad household.

"Trouble at home?" she asked.

Kimi's head snapped towards her. Bingo. "I... Don't wanna talk about it," she said.

"Listen, none of it is your fault," said Gina. "And whatever happened to bring you here is none of my concern, at least until you recover. But if you are having trouble at home, you could have gone to--,"

"I've BEEN to Child Protection!" Kimi hollered. "They're the ones who--forget it!"

Gina wasn't a social worker, and the camp didn't have one. But it was clear that Kimi was having problems at home that needed to be addressed. "I'm sorry," she said.

Gina opened her mouth again to speak but couldn't think of anything.

She was frustrated. "I'll leave you alone for now," she said. "Get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay," said Kimi.

Juan, the team's lead physician, lit up a cigarette as Gina walked out. They exchanged a pair of glances. "I know it's ironic," said the Chilean doctor. "But I don't give a shit."

Gina held up her hands in surrender. Whatever Juan wanted to do was none of her business and she had no room to lecture when she had a bottle of Jack Daniels in the mini-fridge in her tent.

She needed a drink right now, in fact. Kimi was so stubborn in her request and attitude, she was driving her up the wall and over. She collapsed on her cot and a long, exasperated breath escaped her throat while she rubbed her eyes. The next sound she made was a groan. "Bloody teenagers," she muttered to herself, not once recognizing that Kimi's behavior was already rubbing off on her.

And although she chastised herself inwardly when she got up and grabbed the previously-mentioned bottle of Jack to pour herself a glass. She was going to become an alcoholic at this rate. Kimi's refusal to cooperate wasn't helping. She sat back down on her couch while taking a swig of the Jack on the Rocks and sighed. It tasted like cough syrup. BAD cough syrup. Once she finished the glass she laid back down on the bed and covered her eyes.

"Gina?"

"Go away John! Leave me alone!" she snapped.

"Oh, dear, she's rubbing off on you," he said as he came in. Her head collapsed against the pillow again and she groaned.

"Oh, God," she said. "I need to get her away from me."

"Do you want her to stay with Julie?" John asked.

"Nooo," she said. "Two reasons. One: Juan says she needs to rest until her symptoms are gone and then the can get out. Two: I'm NOT going to be held responsible in the death of a teenager playing Tarzan."

John leaned against the post and looked at her with care. Had he been younger--or her older--and/or he wasn't happily married, they'd probably jump each other. But it was okay, as the love between them was more uncle and niece. He showed that when he walked over to her nightstand to remove the bottle of Jack to put it back into the fridge. "Oi! What're you doing?" she asked.

"You're too young to be an alcoholic," he quipped. "Give it a few years and a little more stress. Doesn't mean I won't drag your arse to rehab."

"You're no fun," Gina moaned.

Now he felt more like her dad. Nah, forget the whole parenting thing. He was content to be the hard taskmaster that befitted his military experience. "You want me to try it on her?" he asked.

It seemed to get Gina's attention. And a shit-eating grin. "Go as easy as you can on her," she said.

“I will, don’t worry,” John laughed. And without another word, he took the bottle of Jack out of the tent.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Things had cooled off the next day, and not just the temperature. It was around 70 degrees, although the humidity was still such that a person could be drenched with sweat after a 10-minute walk through the brush. That is, unless you went all Tarzan Kaitan and Julie and walked around as living fanservice, wearing nothing but a loincloth/skinkini, then you’re in good shape. See? Tarzan cosplay has its advantages!

A good 8-hour sleep was just what the Jungle Girl needed after such a stressful day and night. She felt the same way Jane did in _Tarzan and His Mate_ , albeit as a 2-year jungle veteran, and not a neophyte like Maureen O’Hara’s Jane was. Her attitude was so obvious when she strolled through the treehouse the next morning and Kaitan rolled his eyes at her. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Obviously,” she replied, kissing the Jungle Dude’s cheek.

“What about Kimi?”

Aaaaaand, there goes the good mood.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “You know what? Forget it! I think I’ll take the girl up on her request!”

Kaitan dropped the spear he was sharpening and spun around to her. “You’re joking,” he said.

“Not really,” she replied.

“Why the hesitation?”

“I said ‘I think’,” she replied.

“Are you going all technical on me?” he asked.

“Kinda.”

“I knew it,” he said while kneeling down to pick the spear up. “You haven’t decided have you?”

“Just from the way she acted around me, I can tell she’s dead-set on this,” said Julie. “If she’s so eager, I might as well show her how hard it is out here.”

“Just like I did,” said Kaitan. “The student finally becomes the teacher.”

“I’m going to call her ‘grasshopper’,” she said. “It’s a joke… whatever. This is what I get for having a boyfriend who’s lived in the jungle for too long he swears he can ‘hear it calling to him’.”

“You’ve said that too,” Kaitan replied.

“Figuratively,” she replied.

Julie (Julie) took one of the utility belts to wrap it around her waist and fill it with the much-needed supplies set to last the entire day. She donned some sunscreen, kissed Kaitan on the cheek and walked out to the porch where a vine was tied to the bannister. She untied the vine and opened the gate on the bannister. Then she backed up, choked up on the vine, ran forward and swung on the vine, turning in mid-swing to her right, before landing on a branch in a primal three-point stance and taking off to the southwest for the research base camp.

It took her half an hour to arrive.

The base camp was located in a clearing a kilometer-and-a-half east of the island’s southwestern shore, and was 3 miles due west of the main Teo tribe village until they helped the Teo build a new main village on the southern shore. The camp itself hadn’t changed much since it was first set up. It was still primarily a loose collection of tents and plans for a permanent settlement had not yet come to pass. Still, the researchers were happy with the camp.

She saluted a guard she walked past and past another person, Juan. Juan, from the Chilean capital, was a doctor, not a scientist. But just like the man who used that phrase, Juan was still an important part of the team. After all, they needed a doctor should something happen. And though he wasn’t the only doctor, he was the lead doctor, and did his job. And he also happened to be looking after Kimi.

Well, not right now, he was busy having a smoke on the outer fringes of the camp. And he glared at Julie when she took the cigarette from him.

“Sorry,” she said. “Can I see Kimi?”

“Hold on,” he said while taking another cigarette out of the pouch and walking away. As he walked away, Gina, who must have been expecting her by some strange psychic connection, walked up to her. “Hello, Julie,” she said.

“Hm, Julie has good morning too,” she replied in a faux-Tarzan voice.

"Why'd you have to go Jane Porter on me?" Gina asked.

"You don't choose the jungle life," said Julie. "The jungle life chooses you."

“Last week you were teasing Kaitan—I mean, what’s-his-new-name—about the jungle ‘calling’ to him,” said Gina.

“And I’ll still tease him,” she replied. “Nothing’s changed, just the name.”

“I wish I could feel better about that,” said Gina. “But something tells me that’s not why you’re here.”

“Nope,” said Julie.

“Well? Did you decide?”

“I’ll teach her,” said Julie.

“You will?” Gina asked. “I thought you weren’t? And what about the jungle life choosing you?”

“You brought it on yourself.”

“I doubt it,” said Gina. “What is it?”

“I think I’ll train the wannabe.”

“Fuck,” Gina groaned. “What do you hope to accomplish?”

“To maybe dissuade her from wanting to be a jungle girl,” said Julie.

“That’s… actually pretty smart,” said Gina. “Well, in that case.”

She let Julie to the medical tent. Juan was giving Kimi another concussion test, moving his right index finger in front of her eyes to test if her symptoms were gone. “She’s doing well,” he said. “I’d suggest one more day in her before any other activity.”

“That’s okay,” said Gina. “Kimi, Ms. Jungle Girl has an announcement for you.”

“I’ve thought about it,” the Jungle Heroine said while crossing her arms. “And I’ve decided to take you on as my pupil!”

Kimi could hardly contain herself. And had Juan not kept her in bed, she would have jumped out of it. “BUT!” Julie continued. “Don’t assume that you can become a jungle girl so easily. If I’m unsatisfied with your progress, I’m sending you back to the research camp and you’re headed home. Got it?”

“Got it,” Kimi replied.

“You think this’ll work?” Gina asked.

“It might,” said Julie. “From the looks of it, she might not last a week.”

“Don’t doubt the power of a woman with a goal,” said Gina. “Even if she is a petulant teenager.”

“What happened with you last night?” Julie asked.

“Do NOT ask,” Gina replied.

“What are you talking about?” Kimi asked, reminding the two that she was still there.

“Oh, uh, nothing, dearie!” Julie replied. “Just a little discussion between two friends is all! Alright. Here’s the deal: I’m going to wait until you’re cleared to leave the medical tent. I’ll come pick you up and show you the treehouse Kaitan and I share and then I’ll start showing me the ropes. First piece of advice: You want to survive? Follow my instructions. Second: Don’t backsass me, got it?”

“Got it!” said Kimi.

“I look forward to teaching you, grasshopper!” said Julie.

“What could possibly go wrong?” Gina asked to no one in particular.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, sorry this took so long. I was pretty busy over the past couple of weeks. I went to see my grandfather for father's day, and I worked on some other things. And then my grandpa died and I had to attend his funeral. It was... hard, to say the least.


	5. The Training Begins

The next morning, Julie received word from Gina that Kimi was free of her concussion symptoms. So she got dressed in her best furkini—jungle girl’s gotta look good!—washed her hair and took off from the treehouse to the research camp.

She arrived half an hour later. One of the guards was busy having a smoke and had their iPod earbuds in. Julie could hear some distorted Rock ‘n’ Roll coming from the guard’s earphones, which made her remark to herself that he either likes it loud or has the worst hearing out of anyone there. The guard looked up and down Julie’s figure before settling on her chest. A look of disgust appeared as he looked away, prompting Julie to smack his cheek. “What, are my boobs not big enough for you, pervert?” she asked. “So what if they’re fucking average? At least they’re real! HMPH!”

She walked away before running into John again. And he was sharpening his knife until he looked up at her, giving her a look that screamed that he heard her accosting the asshole guard. “You’re in a fine mood,” he said.

“Did no one tell him not to mess with me?” she asked.

“I prefer to let people find out on their own,” said John. “Of course, it doesn’t always work, but it helps.”

Julie didn’t have much to say, so she walked past as he took a sip of the Jack he took from Gina’s tent the other night. So that’s what happened to it.

She came across Gina doing some paperwork in the middle of the camp. Sunscreen was slathered all over her nose and the rest of her body, which looked pale, when compared to Julie’s healthy tan and freckles. And Gina recognized that upon seeing Julie standing next to her. “Hello, Ms. Bronze Jungle Goddess,” she said sarcastically. “I take it you’re here to pick up our guest.”

“Yep!” said Julie. “Let’s just get this over with.

She found Kimi outside the medical tent, without the IVs sticking out of her arms and looking a lot better than earlier. She was also eating a rather hefty breakfast of eggs, sausage, cereal, mangoes and pineapple, which was a good sign. Julie didn’t mind Kimi’s disinterest in her. In fact, it was a lot less awkward than the hero-worship treatment she’d been getting for the past couple of days. It felt normal. Wait, normal? In a jungle-girl story?

Comparatively, anyways. I mean, yeah, there can be such a thing as normalcy in jungle girl story—SHOT

A-HEM. Moving on.

A team member handed Julie a peeled mango. The jungle girl shrugged and took a bite out of it, then wiped some of the juice off of her lips and chin before sitting down. She watched Kimi, who was engrossed in her breakfast, wolf it down. She also looked over at some of the other team members watching Kimi. They were staring at her. Well now, that’s rude! Julie always assumed that manners were manners wherever you went. Kimi might be snarfing her food down right now, but she hadn’t had much to each over the past few days. Didn’t give them the right to stare!

She cleared her throat. “It’s not polite to stare!” she chided in a sing-song voice.

“She looks like you when you eat,” said one of the team members.”

“That joke’s gotten old,” she replied before taking a wolf-like bite out of mango.

Kimi looked up and almost coughed her sausage out before keeping it in. “Julie!” she cried excitedly.

“Picking you up,” Julie replied. “Of course, I’m gonna wait until you’re done eating, since it looks like—”

“But I can—”

“HEY. Who’s the teacher here? Now finish your breakfast!”

She should’ve gotten a clue when Kimi recoiled in surprise before resuming her breakfast.

Before leaving, she gathered a few things from her old tent, which was still up, into a backpack. When Kimi was finally ready, the researchers let her catch up to Julie. Kimi bade good-bye to them, including Juan, whom she thanked for the concussion treatment, before running up to the Jungle Girl. “Alright, idiot check,” she said. “You got some water? Put on bug spray? Sunscreen?”

“Yes,” Kimi said.

“Alright!” Julie said while rubbing her hands together. “There’s a trail here that leads to my treehouse. Let’s go!”

She led Kimi along the trail through the brush. Though she stayed close, Kimi could hardly believe the natural beauty of the island, and craned her neck to get a view of the flora and fauna that were surrounding her. Tall, grand trees like Eucalyptus, cinnamon, gum trees, palm trees, coconut and banyan trees, among others, reached up and created a roof through which the sunlight filtered like water through a strainer. But what little sunlight did get through was bright and powerful. Kimi pretty quickly realized that when she was almost blinded by a ray of sunlight that burst through an opening in the canopy.

The green was all around her, but it was the sounds of all the wildlife that let her know she really was surrounded. Every now and then, she could see the animals peeking down at her from the trees, the majority of which were simply curious about the new hairless creature. She could see a money scurrying along a branch of one of the banyan trees as it followed them. Julie looked up at the monkey and gave it a rude gesture, which only confused Kimi.

But the monkey was the loudest thing she could hear. What surprised her was how quiet the jungle was. The jungle in the movies is loud, filled with the racket of lots and lots of animals. The only sounds that were being made were the occasional monkey calls and insects making _their_ noise. It was pretty jarring to someone so used to the way the rainforest is depicted, but this isn’t a movie, even with the inevitable fantasy elements that are going to—SHOT

 Sorry, spoilers.

After a while, Julie turned around to see Kimi looking around the jungle. “Like what you see?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Kimi.

“That’s part of the reason I stayed,” Julie said, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be _dis_ couraging her guest and not _en_ couraging her. “But your first lesson is this: Respect nature, or it’ll bite you in the ass.”

“Got it!” Kimi said. “Wait, what?”

“If you think this’ll be easy, forget it,” said Julie. “In fact, you may not finish this alive.”

She wasn’t happy to hear this, which Julie subtly smirked at. The first part of this scare-‘em-straight was working. Of course, Julie didn’t want Kimi to die. That kind of guilt could affect her for the rest of her life. But again, we’ve got a lot to get to.

After 30 minutes of walking, they finally arrived at Julie and Kaitan’s treehouse. “Well, here it is!” said Julie. “Home, sweet home! It’s not much, of course, but I think you’ll like it.”

“It looks nice,” said Kimi.

The Jungle Girl led Kimi over to the side, pointing up to a retracted rope ladder. The Jungle Girl pulled something out of the bag she took from her old tent, a hook on a line. “Fishing hook,” she said. “Although, I never really care for fishing.” She tossed the line up to the rope ladder and pulled it down. After putting the line away, she secured the rope ladder and climbed up while urging Kimi to follow. The Nisei-Australian did so when Julie was high enough to be clear. And when Kimi was up, Julie pulled the rope ladder up.

Kaitangreeted Kimi upon her entrance. The younger girl was stunned at the sight of the Jungle Dude. “Hi, I’m Kaitan,” he said while extending his hand to shake. He looked a little surprised by her excitement though, and it made her stop. Julie laughed.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Julie. “Just shake his hand, okay? And don’t go around trying to seduce him, got it!? He’s MINE!”

Kimi was a little intimidated even more so than when she got to meet Kaitan (although she also happened to be staring at his slim, chiseled chest, as well).

“So what now?” Kimi asked.

“Now, we just get some basic stuff out of the way,” said Julie. “If you’re going to survive in the jungle, you’re going to need a weapon, like a knife or a machete. Also, you’ll probably need to know some plants that you can eat while you’re running around all over the place…”

Kimi’s excitement turned into something else as Julie droned on and on. Kaitan noticed Kimi’s nervousness and tapped on Julie’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re supposed to go overboard just yet,” he said.

“Fine,” said Julie. “Whatever. We have a deer antler knife you can use. Or, you can take something else. What’ll it be?”

“Can I see the knives?” Kimi asked.

Julie shrugged. “Good idea,” she said.

Kaitan nodded and walked out of the room before he returned with some knives. There was a Bowie knife, a machete, the previously-mentioned deer antler knife and a switchblade. The knives attached to Julie and Kaitan’s hips were out of bounds. They spread the weapons out in front of Kimi to let the teen make her pick and backed off. That allowed Kimi to kneel and get a better look at her choices. She looked up at the two as if to ask permission for something. When Julie nodded, she picked up one of the knives to get a feel for it.

The knife felt heavy and wrong in her hands. Is this supposed to be bad? To be fair, she was unfamiliar with knives, but if it felt wrong, then it was not for her. So she put it down. She picked up one of the Bowie knives, but it felt kind of heavy to her. Again, it didn’t feel right. So she put it down. The machete felt okay, but it was a bit heavy and felt like it wouldn’t make a good day-to-day tool. This was harder than it looked! Or at least, she just had some standards and wanted something good. It was a bit more of the former, but the latter was also a factor in her decision.

She finally grabbed the deer knife, and this one felt perfect. It was light, strong and fit her hands like a glove. The grin that spread on her mouth was wide enough that she could feel her muscles aching just a LEETLE bit.

“We have a winner,” said Kaitan. “Now then, we have some deer hide you can—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Kaitan,” said Julie. “What are you doing?”

“I thought we were going to give her an outfit,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Already?”

“Yeah, I thought that was the plan,” he said.

“I was going to make her earn it,” said Julie.

Curse their inability to talk things over.

“So… you don’t think she should wear the furkini yet?” he asked.

“I could go naked if I wanted to,” Julie replied. “You’re not a jungle girl just because you wear the costume, ya know.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t start calling yourself that until you started dressing like one,” said Kaitan.

“And it was you who suggested the name, ‘Julie the Jungle Girl’, even if you were joking,” she replied.

“Um, guys?” Kimi asked. “I’m still here?”

“Let’s as her first,” said Kaitan.

“Alright Kimi, what do you want to do; do you want to try on the outfit now or do you want to earn it?” Julie asked.

Having heard their out loud conversation, Kimi thought about it. She’d be excited if she actually got to wear the standard-issue outfit, but Julie had a point. She wasn’t a jungle girl just yet, she had to earn it. So the outfit is like the carrot at the end of the rope, except this time the carrot can actually be obtained. “I want to earn it,” she said.

“Very well then,” said Kaitan.

“There may be something you can wear,” said Julie. “Just not standard-issue jungle stuff Come on, let’s go see what we’ve got.” She waved to Kimi to follow her, and the Nisei girl followed.

They came back downstairs 20 minutes later. Kaitan, who’d been looking over a map of the rather-large island, looked behind him as Julie presented the “new-and-improved” Kimi, now wearing one of Julie’s white Cal Golden Bears women’s shirts and an improvised skirt. Though Kimi seemed a little apprehensive about it, she was satisfied. Especially upon seeing how tattered both of them had gotten. “So?” Julie asked. “She thought the castaway look might be a good starting point. What do you think?”

“I think it fits,” said Kaitan. “What do you think, Kimi?”

“I like it!” the Nisei-Australian replied. “I thought about it, and since I want to become a jungle girl, I’d start out like this. Evolution, y’know?”  The pride was obvious in her face and on her giddy expression, but neither Kaitan nor Julie knew that this was the first time in years that Kimi genuinely felt proud of herself.

“She’s got a good idea,” said Kaitan. “So now what?”

“I’m gonna take her into the woods, but not too far,” said Julie. “I’m going to give her a little starting crash course and then go a bit further tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Kaitain. “Have fun!”

“Come on, Kimi,” Julie said as she led Kimi out of the treehouse. “We’re not going to do anything too advanced today, just a few basics to get you used to the trees, okay?”

“Okay,” said Kimi. Her palms were seating as she gripped her new deer antler knife. Julie went around to another side of the treehouse, where there was a stepladder. She walked to the edge of the porch, beckoning to Kimi to follow her. Kimi did as suggested, which confused Kimi at first, but when Julie pointed at a tree branch jutting out and laid a plank onto the porch and the branch. The Jungle Girl gingerly stepped onto the plank and once she was on it, her movements were fluid, like a cross between cat-like, human-like and ape-like.

“Come on!” Julie said. “Oh, wait, take your shoes off!”

When Kimi looked down, she felt a little embarrassed to see them still on. “But I just—“

“Don’t worry about it,” said Julie. “Just take ‘em off! You don’t need them!”

“Shouldn’t I graduate to that?” Kimi asked.

“No, this is basic stuff,” said Julie. She took out a band and pulled her flowing brown hair into a low ponytail, which from the back, looked like it was still flowing. Kimi, who is not attracted to Julie, was awe-struck by how beautiful she looked. What? Nothing’s wrong with admitting someone of the same sex looks great!

“You look great in that ponytail,” she said.

“Thanks!” Julie replied. “But flattery’s not going to get you a passing grade. Now take those shoes off, and let’s go!”

“Got it!” Kimi said with a clenched fist. She removed her shoes and hopped onto the plank.

Feeling the wood while barefoot for the first time was exhilarating. The plank felt cool, smooth, and kind of damp, like there had been a recent rainfall here. She tried to balance herself as she walked along the flat, but thin board. Maybe some of her concussion issues were still a problem, or maybe she just wasn’t used to it, but either way, she almost stumbled a couple times. But she found her footing and before long, had reached the branch.

Now she had a little more difficulty keeping her balance, as she did not understand just how thin the branch was. And Julie was standing on it so effortlessly! She felt like a fool while trying to keep her balance and almost fell off. But, Julie grabbed her arm and with another hand gripping the branch above her as an anchor, she pulled Kimi back onto the branch.

“Jeez, be careful!” Julie lightly scolded and Kimi flinched slightly. “You HAVE to keep your balance on the branches. Otherwise, you could fall of and you know what might happen.”

“Right, sorry,” said Kimi.

“Don’t apologize!” Julie scolded again. “Just keep your arms out while you get your balance. Hm, maybe I should’ve had you keep your shoes on instead.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Kimi asked.

“No, I’m just not used to being the teacher,” said Julie. “Okay, let’s get some basic tree-climbing going.” She crouched down, holding onto the branch and kept herself in a chin-up position. Kimi realized this must be how Julie was able to get such toned arms that would make Michelle Obama proud… or jealous. Or maybe both. “Okay, watch me,” she said. She started doing a pull-up motion. While it may not have been a good idea, Kimi glanced down to see that they weren’t very far off the ground. She could conceivably fall and not get anything worse than a bruised behind and ego.

“Now you try it!” said Julie.

Kimi nodded and gingerly lowered herself and got into the same position as Julie. Now she started doing some push-ups. Unfortunately, it was difficult. Her muscles felt like they were burning from all the pulling-up she was doing. She strained with the fifth pull-up and then looked to her right to see Julie still doing it effortlessly. Now this was unfair!

She stopped and pulled herself back up onto the branch. She panted heavily and her shirt was soaked with sweat, only exacerbated by the humidity that was starting to get to her. Julie finally finished and pulled herself up onto the branch. “Ah, that felt good!” she said. “Come on, you’re not gonna quit on me, are you?” Her tone was teasing, not a scold.

“I’m doing my best!” Kimi shot back.

Julie held her hands up to Kimi. “Hey, take it easy,” she said. “I was just playing around.”

Kimi didn’t look like she particularly appreciated that. But she got what Julie was trying to say and calmed down.

They spent the rest of the day just working out. Julie’s main goal today was to get Kimi used to the outdoors. They stayed in the trees, and after a while, Kimi started to get used to the branches. One of the main exercises was as Julie led Kimi along the branches to get used to them. The Jungle Girl kept her hands on the younger girl’s hips and had a rope around the waist as a preventive measure. “Easy, easy,” she coaxed. “That’s it, you’re doing it.”

“So when can I start climbing?” Kimi asked.

“Patience, young, too-eager grasshopper,” said Julie. “A baby has to crawl before she can walk.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not just gonna throw you out into the woods with just the knife,” said Julie.

Kimi groaned, but that one split second of distraction was almost her downfall. She slipped and almost fell off, but Julie effortlessly, and with lightning-quick reflexes, caught her. “See what I mean?” Julie asked.

Kimi groaned as she silently conceded the point.

“Alright, for the last lesson today, I’m going to go over the uber-basics of climbing trees. You’re not going to be climbing anything, got it? Well, I mean, it’s great if you get the hang of climbing trees, don’t get me wrong. But I just need to get some basics down for you, okay?”

“Okay!” Kimi said as she made a bicep-polishing gesture that, unbeknownst to her, because of her Japanese roots, did not know why Julie made a disgusted expression.

“Just watch me,” said Julie.

The Jungle Girl walked over to the trunk. After examining the bark, she pointed to some spots. “These here are perfect footholds,” she said. “There’s a few more around her. This branch, which is at a bit of a wonky angle, is a good place for a foothold. Give it a try.”

“Okay!” said Kimi. She quickly ran up to the trunk and almost slipped again, but caught herself again. Julie stepped onto another branch to let Kimi get a foot and hand hold. She tried to lift herself up. But her arms were still tired from the earlier pull-ups. They burned as she strained to pull up with one of the branches and finally pulled herself up.

“Use your legs!” Julie said. “You won’t tire yourself out so quickly!”

Kimi wanted to respond, but she tried Julie’s advice. And it worked! She strained and pulled until she finally reached the second “story” of branches. Now that she was done, she sat down and lied back against the trunk. Her chest heaved, and she huffed and puffed.

Looking down, she saw Julie clapping. “Great work!” she said. “Alright, let’s call it a day and head back to the treehouse!”

When they got back several minutes later, Kimi realized just how dirty she really was. Her shirt was soaked, her hair was a mess and her legs and feet were covered in tree dirt. But upon looking at her grimy appearance, she felt… liberated. Indeed, getting a good view at her sweaty face, she couldn’t help but giggle at her appearance.

“What’s so funny?” Julie chuckled, looking up from her Harry Potter book.

“I’m so dirty!” Kimi replied.

“Yeah, that’s part of the fun,” said Julie. “Though, we will be covering hygiene in the future, okay?”

“Hygiene?”

“You’ll see,” said Julie. “You’re not a jungle girl yet, so don’t get cocky.”

“I won’t!” said Kimi.

She could barely sleep from all the excitement that night. She lay in a tent with a see-through top, staring up at the moon and the stars in all their glory, with a big grin on her lips. She couldn’t wait to get to the good stuff.

She paid no mind to the sound of marchers and chanting moving past the treehouse opening.


	6. Seeds of Discontent

The next couple of days had Julie and Kimi continue to work on the basics of the whole jungle girl thing, mostly around climbing trees and getting used to being out in the wild. In the meantime, she continued to live with the Jungle Couple and became part of the household, doing her part to contribute to the new impromptu family. Through this, she also learned about the mundane, day-to-day life of Julie and Kaitan.

There is no real need to describe the mundane activities of the Jungle Couple in great detail, only that they still brushed their teeth, bathed, shaved, ate breakfast and occasionally washed their hair. They were only 23, but behaved in such way one would expect out of a couple that had been married for so long that they could simply enjoy the mundane in quiet, loving moments. Kimi wished she could have a relationship like this with anyone. And Julie noticed whenever Kimi thought this way, because she looked pretty forlorn and sad, as though she missed someone.

And as they went on, Julie started taking her deeper and deeper into the jungle. And it was during these treks, where Kimi mostly watched Julie, she learned about some of the uncomfortable truths about life in the wild.

They were getting far from the treehouse one afternoon. Julie was following the trail of a pig she’d spotted and decided would make a good breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here, Julie found the right time to teach Kimi a couple things about tracking 101. “Okay, let’s get a closer look,” she said. She gestured to Kimi to kneel down with her. “See these?” she pointed at some footprints. “Looks like the pig stopped to smell the roses. And eat them.” Some plants looked like they’d been chewed on. Kimi took a mental note of things and eagerly nodded.

Julie stayed low, moving in a crouched, ape-like stance. Kimi followed, but crawled on all fours instead. It seemed to work for her, despite how dirty her hands and knees were getting, because she was able to keep pace with the Jungle Girl. When Julie looked back at her, she smiled and nodded her head. “You’re doing great!” she said. “Just stay off the trail.”

“Got it,” Kimi said. It was simple. And from the way Julie pointed at the pig’s footprints, it was going to be easy to follow.

“What can you tell me about this pig?” Julie stopped and asked. “Just make a guess.”

“Okay,” Kimi stopped and examined the tracks again. “I think he’s a bit fat.”

“How can you tell?” Julie asked.

“Well, his tracks look kind of deep,” said Kimi. “I’d think he’d have to be heavy to make tracks like that.”

“Yeah, but look at your feet,” Julie replied. Kimi lifted her foot up and noticed that her footprints were also deep. Kimi wasn’t that big to begin with. “Here’s another lesson: Never make assumptions. This soil, in this particular spot, is pretty soft, so it might make something that’s light seem bigger than it is. Also, look at the stride length. See anything?”

Kimi looked again. She felt the pig’s footprints, carefully trying to touch them without disturbing or damaging them. With her other hand, she measured a pair of prints. They were about her shoulder-width apart. That didn’t indicate much, ad looking up at Julie, she recognized that pretty quickly. So she kept the examination going. But upon finding another, closer print, she realized something.

“This pig was running,” she said. “And it was…”

“Fleet-footed,” Julie finished. “Not bad. So, from the evidence, what conclusion can you draw?”

“That the pig is lighter than I thought?”

“Bingo!” Julie slapped a congratulatory palm on Kimi’s shoulder, causing her to twitch. “Sorry. By the way, you kind of seem on edge whenever something like that happens, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Kimi lied.

“Right, okay,” said Julie. She was about to say something before pausing and grimacing. Clutching her stomach, she stood up and walked over the pig’s trail. “SPIRITS, I gotta take a piss!”

“A what?”

“I gotta pee!” Julie wailed.

“WHAT!?” Kimi shouted, disturbing some birds above her.

“Well where do you think I’m supposed to go!?” Julie snapped. “You think there’s a fucking porta-potty around here?” She ran off into the brush, leaving Kimi speechless and frustrated. She sighed and growled while she sat down on a rotting log to stare at the tracks. She might as well look for more clues about the pig. She thought she saw a human footprint in the dirt, but suspected it was hers. She paid no attention to it and just waited until Julie returned, rubbing her hands with something.

“Stupid backpacker websites making me get this shit,” she said. “Alright, sorry about that. When nature calls, you gotta answer no matter what. OH, and by the way, I’m going to have to teach you what to do when Mother Nature gives you her monthly gift, because getting that out here is a fucking BITCH.”

Just the way she said it was enough to tell Kimi that Julie had some first-hand experience with this. And because she was already grossed out by Julie’s OTHER natural functions, did not want to press the issue.

They went on following the pig’s tracks until they came upon a watering hole. For the first time, Kimi got a good idea of the kind of wildlife that populated the island. The pig, or more specifically, a 3-foot-tall wild hog, lapped up some water at the far end of the spring. Other animals, like wild cats and dogs, drank side-by-side with wild tropical sheep and island deer. This was only a taste of the vast, _invasive_ wildlife that had, somehow, become a fully-developed and balanced ecosystem, with food chains and all.

Julie seemed to care more about how delicious the pig was, rather than the other animals. Naturally, the veteran would be a little more focused than the rookie. She pulled an arrow from her quiver to notch it into the drawstring, which she pulled back. She closed her left eye. Then she licked her lips as if she could already taste the sweet, supple ham and baby back ribs she could make with Kaitan.

She let go.

_THWACK!_

The arrow struck a log next to the hog. But that was all that was needed for the hog and other animals to go crazy. Julie stood and shot at the hog again, but missed. Without warning, Kimi pulled her knife out and ran up to the hog, screaming like a mad woman and trying to stab it, only to miss by half a meter. She looked up from the sand to watch the hog run off into the woods.

Kimi had almost expected Julie to yell at her, call her a failure and she was horrible. So she flinched as Julie walked up to her, only to give a reassuring pat on the back. “It’s okay,” she said. “It was my fault, really. I got too far ahead of myself and missed the target. And look on the bright side! We won’t have to lug a heavy, smelly pig carcass around.”

And so Kimi relaxed.

So they kept on. Julie handed the hungry Australian a piece of venison jerky and cut some fruit down off a tree they had climbed. “This stuff here is edible,” she said. “I don’t just mean tasty. You’re not going to die you eat this stuff.”

Needless to say, Kimi was a little nervous about the fruit. But, since it wasn’t poisonous and she was too hungry and thirsty to care, she took a big bite out of it. It tasted sweet and had the same texture as an apple.

Julie sat down on the branch and took a piece of paper out of her belt. Giving it a look-over, she noted which objectives were done and which were not. There was tree-climbing, which was checked and crossed off, tracking, which got one check, but not crossed out, stalking, spear-throwing, archery, skinning and cooking, all of which had to do with hunting, were not crossed out or had a check on them. Still, when Julie counted how much they’d gone over, she made an impressed expression. “You’re making good progress,” she said, showing her the checklist. “Just don’t get ahead of yourself, got it?”

“Got it,” said Kimi. She did also get a look at the rest of the list Julie was examining. Most of them were either crossed out or checked off, but the ones closer to the bottom worried her. There was “Talk about going to bathroom”, the hygiene section had “personal” and “feminine” listed, “what to do if you fall and break your arm”, “which mushroom should not be touched PERIOD”, and “ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR SKIN”.

“Um, is all of that necessary?” Kimi asked.

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” said Julie. “OH! I forgot! Haircare!” She scribbled that down. “Hmmm, your hair’s getting a little messy. Ah well, I’ve had worse. There’s a reason I had to get a pixie cut a while ago.”

“But… falling?”

“You wanna end up with a useless arm?” Julie replied. “Fine, don’t go get help!”

In that moment, she remembered she was supposed to be scaring Kimi out of becoming a jungle girl. It’s… not a good move, though. “All you’ll have to deal with is a lame leg or arm, and might die of an infection! Oh, and melanoma’s a big problem! And don’t come crying when you—“

“OI!” Kimi shouted. “I thought you were trying to help me!”

“I am!” Julie replied.

Kimi turned petulant teenager and huffed, turning away from Julie. From then on, things were going to be a lot more difficult for the both of them.

It started about half an hour after their break. They had been walking around the jungle for hours by now, and Kimi was getting pretty tired. But Julie looked pretty fresh, helped in part by the endurance she’d built up over the past two years. She showed that as she jumped over a fallen log with little effort, while Kimi huffed and puffed at having to do this again. Was Julie trying to test her or something? “Come on, hurry up! Use your legs!” Julie called out. “You got this!”

Kimi grumbled, despite appreciating Julie’s genuine encouragement and jumped off the log, with Julie following. “I think you still need to work on climbing,” said Julie.

“I’ve been getting better!” Kimi replied, causing Julie to hold her hands up.

“Whoa, take it easy,” said Julie. Kimi’s passing glare made her back off. But she ran ahead of Kimi. Then Kimi ran up to Julie. The Jungle Girl sighed, suspecting that it was simply because Kimi’s a teenager that she was acting like a little rebel. To be fair, Julie had been a teenager only 4 years ago (yes, 19 counts as the teen years) and she hasn’t yet realized how stupid and petulant _she_ was.

But they trekked on. Julie occasionally checked their bearings while Kimi drank from her water canteen. “Better save that,” said Julie. “We’re still nowhere near the next drinkable spring.”

“But I’m tired and thirsty!” Kimi whined. She had to react quickly when Julie threw an apple to her.

“It’s got juice,” said Julie. “Eat it.”

Kimi was too hungry and thirsty to argue.

The next thing she knew, Julie held her hand out and pushed her down. “Hey, what!?”

“SHH!” Julie hushed the Nisei girl and pointed to the small clearing. A rather large cat, not the biggest on the island, but still big enough to kill a human, was prowling around in a small “clearing” (if it could be called that) and looking very agitated. Julie and Kimi watched the cat from their hiding place, not moving even once. That being said, Kimi got a little agitated at the way Julie watched the cat. When Julie sighed, Kimi asked,

“What?”

“I don’t think that cat has rabies,” she said. “He’s just cranky.”

“What?”

“Some of the researchers were worried about rabies,” said Julie. “I don’t think they need to be worried, we’re already pretty isolated that—”

“How do you know it’s not rabies?”

“Look at him!” Julie stage-whispered. “What do you see?”

“Just a cat walking around,” said Kimi.

“No disorientation? No stumbling?”

“No,” said Kimi.

“Those are symptoms of rabies,” said Julie. “I’m not worried, I already said, we’re pretty isolated, so—“

“Can I fight him?”

“NO,” Julie said firmly. “You haven’t even learned how to defend yourself!” She showed Kimi the list. “LEARN TO FIGHT” was circled, with the note “NEED TO DO THIS” scribbled next to it.

“Come ON!” Kimi pleaded.

“I said NO,” Julie replied.

But Kimi’s petulant teenager side won out. “I’m gonna do it,” she said.

“DON’T. YOU. DARE!” Julie hissed through clenched teeth. She reached out to grab Kimi, but it was too late. Kimi ran towards the cat. The feline turned and noticed Kimi, backing away and growled at her. It swiped to keep her at bay. But Kimi kept coming. The cat leaped at Kimi, and the next thing Kimi knew, she was pushed to the ground.

“BAD KITTY!” she heard someone shouting and tossing the cat aside.

Julie drew her machete and started making as much noise as possible at the cat, screaming a number of animalistic and primal sounds while trying to make herself look bigger than she was. The cat, which had been tossed several meters aside, hissed and swiped at Julie before lunging at her. Julie grabbed the cat in mid-air and wrestled it to the ground, where she put into a sleeper hold. And yet, despite all the scars on her body, which told Kimi that she’d done this before, the cat did not land a single claw on her.

When the jungle girl let go, the cat was calm. Julie checked herself over for blood before sighing in relief. But next, she stomped up to Kimi. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR!?” she screamed. “YOU COULD’VE GOTTEN YOURSELF KILLED!!!”

“I WANTED TO—“

“NO!!” Julie shouted. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT!”

“I have to learn, don’t I?”

“You’re lucky this is the first offense, Kimi. Next time, I might not be so willing to help!” Julie stormed off as if to let off steam. But, “ARE YOU COMING OR NOT!?”

Kimi instantly gave chase.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kaitan would spend the day in a different way (hm, that rhymed). After Julie and Kimi left for their little learning trek, the Jungle Dude stayed behind to help prepare Kimi’s standard-issue outfit, should the Nisei-Australian earn it. Getting the leathery deerskin fabric to the flexible, yet sturdy material like what he and Julie wore took some effort. And it took some time to prepare, as the stuff had already been soaked and cleaned, so the graining process came next. The hide was brown, thanks to some of the dye he was using.

When he was done, he stopped and walked away from it. And because the author did a lousy job of researching the process of making buckskin, we’ll focus on something else.

He stood in the doorframe, looking out into the jungle. A thought popped in his head, and that he had yet to visit the Teo in some time. He remembered that a trading group from the Pele Tribe was on its way to the Teo village on the shore, as evidenced by the carved note right next to the HAM radio. Looking at the sun, he suspected it might be getting close to the time the Pele caravan would arrive at the new, researcher-assisted capital village. Next to it, the map of the island showed the extent of Teo territory, taking up much of the southern portion of the island. The Pele took up much of the northwest and there was a gap where the Paea once controlled.

So he strapped on his seven-year-old, waterproof watch, packed up his utility belt and left the treehouse, leaping off the front porch onto a tree branch that jutted out onto the porch and began leaping from branch to branch like many simians, and indeed the Big Guy, Tarzan himself, who never actually swung on vines in the original books. That’s an invention of the Weissmuller movies.

And speaking of which, Kaitan took a much more serious attitude towards his lifestyle, unlike Julie’s much more humorous approach to it. Of course, as we’ve seen, he’s sort of learned to not take it so seriously, either, especially when he just rolls with Julie’s self-mockery. But this is his life, and he’s been living this way for 7 years. He can’t go back to Winnipeg, this is home to him now.

Whatever.

It took him nearly 45 minutes via the tree route to reach the new location of the Teo capital village. Unlike the old village, which was in the middle of a jungle clearing, the “new” capital village was right on the shore. It was actually an older fishing village where most of the Teo fishermen lived and/or worked, but Kaitan always thought that a seashore capital made a lot more sense than one in the middle of the jungle. You know the real estate mantra Location, Location, Location? Exactly. And this Location, Location, Location, was great.

In order to build this new village though, part of the jungle surrounding the older fishing village had to be cut down. It was sad, but there’s still an entire island covered in trees and other vegetation that the Teo revered. The wall was still being built, but from the outside of that unfinished wall, he could see that the village was much bigger than the old one, helped in part by the previously-mentioned fishing village.

Elements of that old village were still there, like the obvious, the outriggers and canoes beached on the shore, with fishermen hauling their nets out or into the boats. A few docks were under construction, and Kaitan suspected they were turning the village into something of a tribal port. No doubt the tribe’s economic powers were going to grow.

The brand-spanking-new huts were clean and brightly colored. This would almost certainly change in the coming years, when people have lived in them for years. But for now, it was like a new house for everyone.

Some of the Teo kids played in the surf. And if you really want to know how little different tribal people are from modern folk, you’ll know when you see the kids playing on the beach like you’d expect at say, Rockaway or Venice Beach.

His first stop was at the hut in the middle. And as he expected, there was a paleman sitting in front. This is Tim, a dude who was possessed by the spirit of some old, evil sorcerer a while ago (read “Julie and the Cursed Ruins” for reference) and ended up learning the Teo language in that way.

“Oh, hey, Kyle,” he said.

“Kaitan,” the Jungle Dude insisted. “Is Manti here?”

“He’s inside,” said Tim.

“I thought I recognized a voice out here!” Chief Manti, clad in his orange-and-yellow ʻahu ʻula and carrying his mahiole helmet under his arm. “Good to see you again, Kaitan!”

“Hello, Manti,” said the Jungle Dude. “I have some news, by the way. Julie’s taken on an apprentice.”

“She has?” Manti asked, his eyebrow raising a la Stephen Colbert. “Another paleman?”

“She is from a paleman land,” said Kaitan. “But she is not what I would consider a paleman. She’s uh… Japanese.”

“I do not know what that is, but I would love to hear more,” said Manti. “What is she doing?”

“She is teaching her the ways of the jungle,” said Kaitan. “She started by teaching her to climb trees and now she’s teaching her how to hunt.”

The Polynesian chieftain smiled and nodded his head. “Excellent,” he said. “I cannot wait until more outsiders get a taste of our way of life. But, I suspect that is not why you are here. If you were, I would have gotten a messenger bird from you.”

“When are you expecting the Pele?” Kaitan asked.

“Soon,” said Manti. “Tim, what time did Chief Kawa say he and his men would be here?”

“The hawk message said sun-on-top-of-sky,” he said, handing a slip of paper to Manti.

“Ah yes, I forgot,” said Manti. “That is strange.” He indirectly looked up at the sun, and scowled. “The sun is a few degrees of the top. Kaitan, what does your timekeeper say?”

Kaitan checked his watch. “It’s 12:37,” he said.

“They’re late,” said Tim.

“And Kawa is usually on time,” said Manti. “What could it—”

The sound of a conch shell blowing from the north interrupted him. “Better late than never,” said Kaitan.

The Teo villagers gathered at the north entrance, or at least what was to _be_ the north entrance once it’s completed. A procession of men, led by a man in a blue-and-green ʻahu ʻula and mahiole, entered the village. There were no cheers or applause, but friendly greetings. But the Pele men seemed more grateful and relieved than happy to do their job. And it confused Kaitan, Manti and Tim, who all shared a confused glance amongst each other.

“You there! Come with me!” Manti ordered.

The greeting party approached the traders. They carried straw baskets filled with fish, grains, spices, fabrics, fruit, vegetables, toys and weapons. But they were also half-full in some places, and others that were empty. The Teo villagers were baffled, and turned to Manti and his greeting party as they approached. Chief Kawa, the man dressed in the blue-and-green garb, walked up to Manti to greet him. “I apologize for being late,” he said. “It seems the logistics of a convoy like this are more difficult than I imagined.”

“What happened?” Manti asked. “And why are some of the barrels empty?”

Kawa called to one of his subordinates. That subordinate walked up and handed a broken spear to Manti’s second-in-command, Hilo. He and Manti examined the spear. It did not look like any spear they had.

Then Kawa brought them around. Some of the empty baskets were torn and had holes in them. They looked like something had pulled on them. And Manti almost ran into a deer pulling the cart, but stepped around it.

And at the end of the caravan, they found it. A man, a paleman in more ways than one—not only was he a White guy, he was painted albino—lay dead with an arrow sticking out of his chest.

“Them again,” Manti said. “What happened?”

“They ambushed us,” said Kawa, “Not two hands ago. They came from the west and demanded we get out of their territory. We of course, told them to get out of ours, but they attacked. This one here managed to get up onto one of our carts before he was shot. Except I wish he was still alive. This is the third time already!”

“We can send some of our warriors with you to escort your caravan on the journey home,” said Manti.

“I appreciate the offer, but I already brought some of my best warriors,” said Kawa. “I fear we may have to do something more drastic soon, regarding that cult.”

“My sources say they are not a threat,” said Manti. “Then again, I am not positive they are telling the entire truth, so I must take… Tim, what is the term I am thinking of?”

“A grain of salt, sir.”

“What he said,” Manti finished.

“A good philosophy,” said Kawa. “Kaitan?”

“What have you and Julie found?” Manti asked.

“Not much,” said the Jungle Dude. “And it’s not much of a whole lot to begin with.”

“Not again,” Kawa muttered.


	7. New Understanding

Kimi was impatient. Or getting impatient.

As the sun set on the jungle and Julie typed away on her Tumblr blog, the Nisei/Sansei read Julie’s copy of  _The Sorcerer’s Stone_  with scrunched lips and furrowed brows. Julie’s incessant typing, along with the equally-incessant sounds of the insects outside, only heightened Kimi’s annoyance. Those bugs were kept from entering the house by some screens they closed during the evening and some safe bug repellent outside. It seems a little contradictory, but remember that you can take the girl out of civilization, but you can’t take the civilization out of the girl—SHOT

Julie closed her laptop and stood up to walk over to the window. “It’s a pretty sunset,” she said. “Why don’t you take a look?”

“I’m okay,” said Kimi.

“You sure?” Julie asked, turning around. “You don’t look happy.”

“I’m  _fine_ ,” Kimi insisted.

“Okaaayyyyy,” Julie said in a sing-song. She looked outside again. “Hmph. I wonder where Kaitan is.”

“What?” Kimi asked.

“Nothing,” said Julie. She walked over to the HAM radio and sat down. She twisted the knobs until she found the frequency she was looking for. “Tribe Family, this is Jungle Girl, come in Tribe Family.”

“Tribe family?” Kimi asked.

“The Teo adopted my boyfriend,” said Julie. “If it wasn’t for them, he’d be dead. And they adopted me, too.” She showed Kimi the tattoo (should’ve mentioned that earlier) on her arm. “I am an official member of the Teo Tribe. I’ve gone native!” Her voice was filled with infectious giddiness and glee.

“Will I be adopted?” Kimi asked.

“Maybe,” said Julie. “It’s not like this was easy, though.”

“ _Jungle Girl, this is Tribe Family_ ,” Tim’s voice crackled over the radio. “ _What is it, Julie?_ ”

“Hey Tim,” said Julie. “You know where Kaitan is?”

“ _He just left,_ ” said Tim. “ _The Pele trading caravan got attacked, and—_ ”

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!” Julie sputtered, “Slow down! Whaddaya mean, ‘attacked’?”

“ _I mean those Teo fakers attacked the caravan on their way here!_ ” said Tim.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Julie groaned. “Not again.”

“ _Should I tell you the details?_ ” Tim asked.

“No, it’s fine,” said Julie. “I’ll ask Kaitan when he gets back.”

“ _Got it. Tribe Family out._ ”

“Jungle Girl out,” she said before leaning back in the chair and releasing a frustrated sigh.

“What were you talking about?” Kimi asked.

“We’ve been monitoring the activity of a cult for about two months now,” said Julie. “Look at this here.” She handed a notepad to Kimi. The scribblings on the paper noted each attack and the date. In May, there was an attack on a Pele trading post just inside Teo territory. The attackers appeared to be Teo, but witnesses described several men who appeared to be “palemen”. Kimi obviously didn’t understand that reference, so Julie pointed out what it means. Another note, this one from June, was about the capture of a paleman, who committed suicide before they could get answers out of him.

“We think they’re a cult,” Julie mused. She looked up at the map of the island. Teo territory was filled out in orange streaks, Pele in blue. What WAS the territory of the Paea in the east was labelled as “power vacuum”. A note, attached to the map, noted Queen Orangta, the woman behind the slaughter of the main Paea village and by extension, the chief.

A series of “X’s” denoted the location of suspected cult attacks. “No pattern,” said Julie. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Get a good look?”

“Yeah,” Kimi replied as she walked away from the map.

A Tarzan-like cry cut through the jungle and the evening. Julie smiled and turned to the windows. Kaitan landed on the porch, carrying a bag and a few other things. “Juuuullliiiiieee, I’m hooooommmme!” he called with a laugh.

“You couldn’t resist, could you?” she asked.

“Not after what happened earlier,” he said.

“I heard from Tim,” said Julie. “Can you give me the details?”

Katain walked over to the map to point at the spot just south of the Pele trading post. Julie sighed. “So what now?”

“We keep monitoring—”

“OI! What about me!?” Kimi interrupted.

This made Julie turn around and give her a dirty look. Kimi backed down, but only a little bit.

They ate dinner quietly. Kaitan looked up from his deer meat and mango dinner every now and then to see how Julie and Kimi were doing. Neither of them were really talking to each other. The frustrated Jungle Dude facepalmed and shook his head while doing so. He got a peek at Julie, noticing that she was trying to put on the appearance of a “mature adult”, but her movements were like that of the current petulant teenager sitting to her right. This made the Jungle Dude sigh and shake his head again.  _What the hell happened?_  he thought to himself.

“So… how’d training go?” he asked. Kimi refused to answer. Julie just looked at him with the dirtiest glare he’d ever seen. “So I guess it went well,” he quipped.

This continued on through the night. As he and Julie went to bed, and Kimi went to the tent outside to get some shut-eye, he could see that SOMETHING was bothering her. She sat up in their primitive bed, with her arms and legs crossed, muttering something about how petulant Kimi was being. That was enough for him.

He sat down next to her naked form (they always slept  _au naturale_ , which by the way, is not dirty, and not sexual in of itself) and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s Kimi,” he said. “What’d she do?”

“She’s being a brat,” said the Jungle Girl.

“Why?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said whilst laying down and covering her body up with the light covers. Kaitan groaned in frustration and also pulled the covers over himself.

“You know,” he said, showing he wasn’t about to give up, “You were doing a really good job with her, eh? I think you really wanted her to succeed. Maybe that’s why you’re so upset.” The Jungle Girl groaned as Kaitan blew out the candle.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Julie and Kimi went out again the next morning. They packed some deer meat, fresh and freeze-dried fruit, nuts and water bottles on their day-long trek.

Julie led Kimi to the northwest on a trail that from the looks of it, had been cleared out for some time. It must have been Julie’s instructions, because she could see evidence of a LOT of wear and tear in the ground. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was a dirt path surrounded on both sides by lush vegetation. In fact, Julie told her that this was used a lot by the Teo for years for… she forgot why.

But neither of them said anything. Julie focused on the path ahead. Kimi looked around, listening for the sounds of the jungle—which were sparse—and watching for things that could stick themselves into her bare feet and hurt like a bitch for weeks. Luckily, there was nothing to worry about. Although, Julie was effortlessly walking and skipping along the trail, making Kimi frown in envy.

After a while, Julie led Kimi off the trail. She led Kimi up to another tree and gestured to her to climb up. Almost reluctantly, Kimi grabbed onto the trunk. Using a couple hand and footholds, she pushed herself up the tree trunk. Julie followed behind on the other side, so she didn’t have to look up Kimi’s skirt and make her feel uncomfortable. Which, to be honest, Julie had her own issues with her standard-issue gear that we’ll get into in a second. Her effort was… effortless, but slower, so as to allow Kimi to climb the tree until she reached the first branch they came to. Kimi doubled over, panting, while Julie smoothly pulled herself up.

“It’s not that tall,” Julie said as she looked down.

“Whatever,” said Kimi. “Why’d you—“

“Climb up the other side of the trunk?” Julie finished. “Simple. I didn’t want to make things awkward for you and look up your skirt. That’s the problem with the standard-issue stuff. This wide one here doesn’t come with—”

“Stop! Stop! TMI!” Kimi said with a blush.

“Oops! Sorry!” Julie laughed. To be honest, Julie was wearing something under that loincloth, but that’s not a topic we’ll be covering.

She watched Kimi try to regain her balance. The Nisei/Sansei girl held her hands out, gingerly stepped on the branch and almost lost her balance but she recovered before falling off and Julie sighed, letting go of her hair. “Concentrate!” the Jungle Girl said in an attempt to calm her down. But her tone inadvertently sounded harsh and critical. It made Kimi snarl subtly and mutter to herself.

Julie jumped up, grabbed the branch above her, and carefully climbed over to Kimi’s side. She sat down once she pulled herself up onto the branch to watch Kimi working on her balance. She watched Kimi turn around and give it another go, this time going in the opposite direction. But the Jungle Girl’s gaze made it hard for Kimi, and she almost slipped again. Julie’s exasperated sigh didn’t help matters much.

Julie’s presence and stern eye was distracting to Kimi. Her mind swirled with annoyed thoughts about the Jungle Girl’s stare, watching as she almost fell off the branch again and again. And all the while, she made no effort to get off her arse and do something. It was getting annoying. And all the while, her balance did not get better, but worse. And she almost fell a number of times until she finally jumped onto another branch. But here, her distractions were almost her downfall.

She slipped. She botched the landing, her foot did not land on the branch and she could not get a foothold. She began to fall over backwards, grabbing at the nearest vine to stop her fall. But her efforts were fruitless, and she began to plummet. She didn’t know how far she’d fallen, only that her sense of time must have slowed down in the surprise and shock of what had just occurred, and it almost caused her to accept her inevitable demise. At least she would die far away from her foster family and—

Julie grabbed her wrist. “HANG ON!” she called out. The Jungle Girl was dragged down onto the branch by Kimi’s weight. She struggled to pull Kimi up, her face getting red from the strain. But here, she could see that her muscles were not just for show, even if Julie was trying with all her might to pull Kimi up. “Grab onto something!” she pleaded. Kimi instantly reached up and grabbed the branch. And now that she was able to do that, Julie was able to stand up and pull Kimi back up onto the branch and to safety. To say Kimi was stunned was an understatement. But she also didn’t expect Julie’s next reaction.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” the Jungle Girl screamed. “I TOLD YOU TO CONCENTRATE! AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED! YOU ALMOST GOT YOURSELF KILLED! AGAIN! THAT’S IT!!! GET OUT!!! I’M SENDING YOU BACK TO MELBOURNE!!!”

And now it was time for Kimi to snap. “FUCK YOU!!!!” she screamed. “YOU’VE BEEN DOING NOTHING BUT CRITICIZE ME ALL DAY, AND I’M FUCKING TIRED OF IT!!!! YOU’RE WORSE THAN MY FOSTER MOM!!!!”

“Huh?” Julie asked.

“I DON’T WANT TO BE YELLED AT! I’M NOT SOME PUNCHING BAG FOR YOU ANYMORE, HENRY!!!”

“Henry?”

“YOU’RE NOT MY DAD! AND I DON’T CARE IF IT’S JUST A FANTASY, I WANT TO BE WILD AND FREE LIKE JULIE, AND—” Something happened. Kimi began to hyperventilate and shrank down to a pseudo-fetal position on the branch. Julie quickly grabbed Kimi.

“Kimi! KIMI!” Julie pleaded. “Calm down!”

“I can’t—I can’t go back there! I don’t want to go back!”

“Go back to what?” Julie asked.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” Kimi shouted. “I DON’T—”

Julie reached out and hugged Kimi as tight as she could and gently shushed her whilst stroking her back and hair. “Calm down,” she said gently. “You’re safe. They’re not going to get you.”

She kept doing this for several minutes, urging Kimi to calm down and breathe deeply. After a while, Kimi’s breathing became less ragged and more stable. Julie could also feel her heartbeat slowing down until it was at the normal pace. When Kimi finally sighed, Julie could tell it was over.

When she let go of her, she sat the Australian girl against the trunk. The American turned to Kimi to hand her some nuts, deer jerky and water while reaching out to gently grab her shoulder. “Hey,” she said gently and friendly. “What’s wrong?”

Kimi did eat the jerky and nuts, but pulled herself into another fetal position. “Whenever you want,” said Julie.

It took her a couple minutes before Kimi was finally ready to talk. She sniffed and gulped, wiping the tears from her eyes and then saying, “My foster family.”

“Foster?” Julie asked. Kimi nodded.

“My mum was killed in a car crash after we were leaving a Melbourne FC match,” said Kimi. “And da’ is a veggie now. Victoria’s Department of Human Services found a foster family for me.”

“Victoria?”

“The state Melbourne is located in,” said Kimi.

“Oh, okay,” said Julie. “Kaitan once told me he’d visited Victoria, but I guess he meant Victoria, British Columbia. Whatever, keep going.”

“But… my foster family treats me like dirt,” said Kimi. “They insult me, they yell at me, they hit me—”

“Hit you!?” Julie spat. Kimi nodded.

“It was just so horrible, I—” she sniffed. “I wanted to get away. And they’d tell me that I was to blame for my parents’ death. And they’d always put on a show for DHS, that’s why I couldn’t get out. And they’d blame me for the treatment I got—They’re right, I’m horrible!”

“That’s bullshit!” Julie interrupted. “You are NOT at fault for the abuse you had to put up with. It’s  _their_  fault because  _they’re_  the ones who did it.”

“You mean it?”

“Absolutely!” said Julie. “But this is why you looked up to me so much, isn’t it?”

Kimi nodded. “I just remember reading that article where you looked so proud of yourself. I wanted to be just like you. But they always told me that I’d never be like you. I thought that if I met you, you’d be much nicer to me.”

“I am being nicer,” said Julie. “Kimi, you’re not the only person who’s ever had to put up with child abuse. There are millions of kids all over the world. And many of them are able to escape that abuse. Just like you did!”

“Well, actually…” Kimi said.

“What?”

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kimi frantically shoved her key card into the card slot until the green light appeared. Then she dashed into her stateroom, got changed and hid under the bed. Henry would be here soon, and her best hope was to stay right here and still. Her heart was pounding and she was covered in sweat from running all through the cruise ship just to get to her stateroom.

It wasn’t long before the door slammed open and she could see Henry’s feet. “KIMI!!!” he screamed. “YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BRAT!!!!” His feet stomped into the room before stopping. “Come out, Kimi! You can’t go anywhere! You’re literally surrounded by water, we’ll find you eventually. Oh forget it. Come on out, I’m not mad. But I am disappointed in your behavior, making me the bad guy! We took you in and this is how you repay us? By making a mockery—wait, wait, wrong idea.”

He was so obviously trying to cover his tracks that she didn’t believe him a bit. The ship suddenly rocked and she held on for dear life and she watched his feet stumble.

“HENRY!” his wife’s voice shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find Kimi!” he said.

“Oh, of course,” said his wife. “Come on Kimi, we know you’re in here.”

“We won’t hurt you,” said Henry. “Honest!”

Kimi didn’t believe it one bit.

Another rock caused Kimi to roll over a bit and hit her head against the bottom of the bedframe. It didn’t hurt too much, but it definitely hurt. And against her own wishes, she gasped in pain.

It was loud enough for Henry and his wife to hear. “I wonder where she could be,” he said in an innocent sing-song. Kimi backed further under the bed. Henry and his wife’s feet gathered near the foot of that bed. Kimi was trapped like a rat.

But you know what they say about cornered rats.

Henry’s patience eventually ran out. He ran to the side of the bed and reached under, grabbing Kimi by the wrist. But Kimi frantically and desperately whacked at his hand. She succeeded at keeping him at bay while slinking into the back of the bed. But Henry finally got his grip on her and yanked her out from under the bed and slammed her against the closet door. She cried out in pain as her back and the back of her head collided with the wood.

“DON’T HIT ME!” he roared.

But that moment of surprise and shock didn’t last long. She began to hit at Henry again, this time getting his jaw and making him drop her.

At the same time, the storm Capt. Turan had warned them about, bared down on the ship, sending waves crashing against it. And as Capt. Turan and his crew bravely kept the ship afloat, Kimi fought for her life against the foster family that had abused her for years. Unfortunately, Henry was bigger than her and made it hard for her to fight back. And in one moment, he pushed her against the door. She didn’t know how it happened, but the door opened, and some of the rain fell into the room.

“You want to leave us?” Henry asked. “After everything we’ve done for you? You won’t survive out there! You’ll die on the street!”

Kimi screamed and lunged at Henry, who grabbed her by the collar. The next thing that happened was a blur, but here third-person omniscient comes in handy.

Kimi bit him on the wrist. He screamed and tossed her. As she stumbled backwards, a large-enough wave struck the port side of the ship, tilting it to the starboard side. In the bridge, the crew kept the ship afloat. In her starboard-side stateroom, Kimi slipped and flipped over the railing as Henry frantically reached to stop her from falling over. But it was no use, as she fell overboard, and splashed into the water. The waves and current swept her away. And though she resurfaced, she was out cold.

She arrived on Greystoke Island the following morning.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kimi finished at the part where Henry threw her, but Julie got the idea. And she had her hands cupped over her lips and her eyes wide in shock and horror at what this poor girl just went through. “I am so, so, SO, SORRY,” she choked out.

“THEN WHY WEREN’T YOU THERE TO SAVE ME!?” Kimi shouted back before realizing what she’d just said. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t know what came over—“

“Kimi, calm down!” Julie said, grabbing the younger girl by her shoulder again. “I get it, you’re frustrated. But I’m just one person. And I live here. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I saw it, and yes, I do feel guilty that I couldn’t do anything. But Kimi, it’s not your fault. And, I’m going to sound crazy, but, I think you should stay, at least until a better home is found for you.”

Though Kimi wanted to ask the Jungle Girl why until, she didn’t press the matter. “And to be honest, I did kind of want you to leave the island,” the Jungle Girl continued. “I mean, the warnings were pretty obvious. And, I wanted to make it hard for you, but I guess I was subconsciously rooting for you. I’m sorry for being such a bitch.”

“Do you regret staying here?” Kimi asked.

Julie genuinely smiled and said, “No, I’m happy here.” But then her expression turned sadder and she looked away towards the rest of the jungle. “But, at the same time…”

“You miss your friends?” Kimi asked. Julie nodded.

“But then again…” Julie said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Her words were honest. And so was her smile. “Come on, I wanted to show you something.”

After another half-hour of walking, they came across what Julie was looking for. They emerged, after having been walking in primal stances, into what appeared to be a campsite. Julie examined some items littered about, while Kimi prowled around on all fours. “Want me to tell you what happened?” Julie asked.

“I can guess,” said Kimi.

The remains of civilization were all around. And the still-fresh camp made it obvious that whomever had been here before had only “left” recently. She could see cans of baked beans, Spam, coffee and vegetables scattered about the site, cast aside like a cheap scarf. Several burnt logs were also strewn about, and even the remains of a fire pit. She got up on her knees and looked up. Clothes, guns, tents and more were all around her. As she turned around, she saw Julie sitting down next to the remains of the fire pit.

The tents were still in good shape, and looking through their openings, she could see the sleeping bags still in them. A few books, one of which had a golden man carrying the world on his shoulders, titled “Atlas Shrugged”, apparently left there as if someone wanted her to find it. But upon turning to Julie, she saw the Jungle Girl make a disgusted expression at that book, and came to another conclusion. Maybe this book had something to do with the camp’s demise.

She turned around to see two flags. One the obvious Stars and Stripes of the American flag, and another. It was yellow, and upon closer inspection, had a snake coiled up and ready to strike with the words “Don’t tread on me” stitched in under it. Julie cleared her throat again, and Kimi turned around. Julie pointed to a notebook she’d grabbed and handed it to Kimi.

While reading it, she noticed it was by some Yank named Ralph. She read how he came to the island with some of his militia friends—that’s what they called themselves, anyways—to escape America’s crushing liberalism, which made her laugh. The pages were filled with disorganized and incoherent ramblings of a mad man who, as the entries went on, became more and more paranoid by the day. He seemed to believe that his comrades were hindering their progress and he had to do everything, including hunt, himself.

Finally, the journal entries stopped. Kimi looked up at Julie. “Finished?” she asked. Kimi nodded. “So?”

“He went crazy?” she asked.

“Some right-wing militia fanatics thought it would be easy to play survivalist out here,” she said. “But they were so fixated on their ideology that they didn’t want any help, even though they had to work together to survive. Really, that’s their biggest mistake. Their other biggest mistake is that they underestimated nature. Now most of them are dead.”

Kimi gulped. Now she realized why Julie wanted to take her here.

“Now, originally, I was doing this to scare you into going home,” said Julie. “But, let this be a warning, anyways. Do not underestimate nature, and do not overestimate yourself. If you do, you will not survive. Take the jungle girl life seriously. I don’t mean too serious, but you get what I’m trying to say, right?”

“Right,” said Kimi. “Thanks for showing me.”

“You’re welcome,” said Julie. She stood up and wrapped her arm around Kimi’s shoulder and led her away from the camp. “Now then, what do you want to learn next?”


	8. The Wheels Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capt. Turan makes his move and Henry's family try to cover up Kimi's disappearance. Meanwhile, Julie teaches Kimi how to fight.

The cruise ship carrying Kimi’s foster family made it to Hawaii.

Though the storm was powerful enough to damage the ship, it wasn’t powerful enough to sink it. It just did enough damage to force the ship to anchor off some atoll Kiribati while the crew worked on the ship. Luckily, the repairs weren’t extensive and it only took about a day for them to make the necessary repairs until they reached Hawaii. It took them a few more days, to finally reach Honolulu, but they were late. Unfortunately. The company wasn’t going to be happy.

But Capt. Turan had to remind them that it was better they got there safe, sound and intact, then sink. Imagine the Senate hearings!

But they made the 1,300-mile trip with a limping ship that would need a little more maintenance before it could sail back to Australia. Hey, if it means more time in Hawaii, then the passengers were fine with that! Especially since the hotel was on the company!

Capt. Turan had a favorite bar in Honolulu that he liked to frequent whenever he came here. Said bar was popular with foreign nationals, tourists and even locals, despite not being a tourist-trap kind of bar, like so many bars that probably drive Hawaiian locals of all stripes (white, black, Asian, Native Hawaiian) CRAZY. Whatever. It was on N Hotel Street, nestled in a square-shaped block of businesses, just a bit north (west) of the downtown office buildings.

The bar itself wasn’t a dive bar, or like mentioned earlier, a tourist trap. It was just a local, neighborhood bar that just happened to be popular with a wide range of clientele. Today, however, it wasn’t hopping, which is a good thing. Bars are usually better when they’re not hopping with people, and thus they feel more like a secret meeting spot instead of an open cacophony. Then again, if the bar’s popular, then they must be doing something right.

And though he is a practicing Muslim, Capt. Turan enjoyed the occasional drink, as he sat down next to a man wearing an FBI cap. Drunkenness was forbidden. Consumption of alcohol was not. Seriously, there’s verses in the Quran that support this. And there’s no verses that threaten hellfire if anyone actually DOES have a drink. And besides, Turkey’s pretty lax when it comes to alcohol—SHOT

Capt. Turan ordered a lager and looked up at the screen to see a news story about his ship. He sighed in frustration and exasperation. “ONE passenger falls off my ship and it’s all over the news,” he bemoaned.

“Who was it?” the man in the FBI hat asked.

Capt. Turan cursed himself for speaking out loud. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “Because that would violate my passengers’ privacy.”

“Fine,” the man in the FBI hat replied. “By the way, I didn’t expect you to lose a passenger, Omer.”

Capt. Turan rolled his eyes and turned to the middle-aged man sitting next to him. “Jack Klinsmann,” he said, shaking the man’s hand with a warm smile. “How have you been?”

“Been going great,” said Jack.

“Are you still with the FBI?”

“No, I’ve got a private firm now,” said Klinsmann.

“Oh, so you’re going the Private Eye route,” Capt. Turan said with a smile. “Any dames come into your office looking for the Maltese Falcon?”

“Not yet, but I’m keeping my eyes out,” he said. He turned to the TV and the story about the overboard passenger. “First time that’s ever happened to you?”

“Unfortunately,” said Omer. “And I know who it was.”

“Who?” Jack asked.

“I can’t tell you who, but I know where they are. I got a call from my friend John Tamou a few days ago who told me that our missing passenger washed ashore on Greystoke.”

“Greystoke, huh?” Jack asked, taking a sip of his beer. “Think they’ve met Julie and Kaitan?”

“John told me they were a big fan of them,” said Capt. Turan. “So I’m pretty certain they have.”

“Now that I think about it, why couldn’t that Karza guy have been found by any one of your buddies?” Jack asked.

“You think someone’s just gonna blow the location of one of the biggest secrets in the shipping industry?” Capt. Turan asked. “Besides, I’ve never had to use Greystoke in my career.”

“Shipping industry,” Jack laughed. “I swear, you guys haven’t changed since Blackbeard.”

Capt. Turan laughed and covered his mouth.

“So, what else do you need?” Jack asked.

“Why do you think I need something?” Capt. Turan replied.

“Just asking,” said Jack.

“I had dinner with a family last week,” said Capt. Turan. “I was… suspicious of them. It looked like they were abusing their foster daughter.”

“If you want me to spy on them, just remember that I don’t stalk anyone,” said Jack. “But how long are you going to be in Hawaii?”

“Until repairs are finished,” said Capt. Turan.

“You limped… how many miles?”

“Thirteen hundred.”

“Thirteen hundred miles in a damaged ship?” Jack asked. “I’m impressed.”

“Getting back to our topic,” said Capt. Turan, “What can you do?”

“I can’t monitor their credit card or financial information,” said Jack. “I could get a judge’s approval, or I could call some buddies at the State Police. You know what, I think I can get a judge’s approval. I’d need to gather the evidence, though. Are they—”

“They’re Australian.”

“Oh, that’s a toughie,” said Jack. “I may have to talk with Australian and American authorities. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t guarantee anything, okay?”

“I understand,” said Capt. Turan. “But they are here in Honolulu. I can give you their room number—“

“No, I’ll wait until I have permission from the judge,” said Jack. “And once that’s done, let’s just let the legal process work itself out.”

“I always thought you didn’t need a judge’s approval,” said Capt. Turan.

“I can follow and I can spy on them,” said Jack. “But, I’m not going to stalk them. I can do things the cops can’t, but they can do things I can’t.”

“Makes you wonder why you quit the FBI?”

“The pay is good,” said Jack. “But I take it you’re not going to pay me?”

“No,” said Capt. Turan.

“Well, now, I’m not sure I can guarantee anything,” Jack laughed. “Tell you what. I’ll do it just this once, so you don’t have to raise suspicion. But remember, I’m going to work with the authorities.”

“Sounds great,” said Capt. Turan. “As long as the job gets done?”

“As long as the job gets done,” said Jack. “I’m going to call the judge and see if I can tap their phones. Just give me what you can.”

“Done,” said Capt. Turan.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

But of course, Henry was NOT happy, no matter how much money he was saving on free hotel and the like. He sat in the family’s room, ruing not over his overall abusive treatment of Kimi, but the fact that she got away. IF ONLY he hadn’t gotten so angry with her that time, if ONLY he hadn’t scared the living daylights out of her, and IF ONLY he pulled her out of the room so he could punish her. Of course, never once did he consider why she fought back, if only out of a number of reasons.

It just goes to show how unapologetic some people can be. It’s sad, isn’t it?

Of course, for the moment, it’s a bit of poetic justice that he’s no longer able to torment poor Kimi for the time being. And perhaps, at some point, he might end up seeing actual justice for what he did.

He turned on the TV and snorted in disgust. It was some trash TV show about a woman complaining that her husband was a no-good male gold-digger who did nothing but sit around on his arse all day watching trashy TV like this. The irony hit him for a moment, but he shrugged when he remembered that he’s a stockbroker, not some unemployed loser.

Joan and Jake were not in the room with him. Instead, they were out at the beach after having yelled at him for letting Kimi go, and were not done yelling at him, as you will soon see. In essence, he was under a form of house arrest just without the actual arrest.

But he was still angier at Kimi for making him lash out like that, and for her misbehavior at the dinner table in front of Captain Turan. Looking down at the piece of paper in his hand, with his resignation letter from the firm written down in the case that the firm forced said resignation. As you may have guessed, and thus do not need to be reminded, he did not consider the other reason for this resignation. Then again, if he lied about it, he didn't need to worry about it.

And that unfortunate and malicious idea/realization was on his mind when Joan walked into the room with Jake in tow, carrying their leis and beach bags. “Well, we had a good time,” said Joan. “Too bad you weren’t there. We got a surfing lesson, saw an impromptu hula dance and even met a couple from Perth. Too bad you weren’t there. Oh right, you lost Kimi. Just wait until DHS hears about it.”

“We won’t have to worry,” said Henry.

“What do you mean?” she asked. Her tone was still angry, but also curious.

“We can lie, can’t we?”

Joan cocked her head in intrigue. “Go on,” she said.

“If the agency finds out she’s missing, we can pretend it was an accident,” said Henry. “If not, then we’ll pretend that she’s still with us.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Joan asked while putting her hand on her hip. “For all we know, her disappearance has made the news back home, and we’ll be facing a media circus when we get back! And not to mention Captain Turan—”

“Am I supposed to be afraid of him?” Henry asked. “What kind of power does he—” His cell phone began to ring. He immediately picked it up and answered. “Henry Morgan speaking.”

“ _Yes, Mr. Morgan?_ ” the voice on the other end asked. “This is Ms. Grainger from FCAV. I was just calling to see how Kimi was doing.”

Henry covered the phone and whispered to Joan that the foster care association had called. It obviously wasn’t the Victorian government, but it wasn’t what they wanted, either. “Yes, she’s doing alright,” he lied. “She’s sleeping right now. We just got off the cruise ship in Hawaii after we were in a rough storm, so she’s pretty buggered. Other than that, she’s doing fine.”

“ _Thank you, Mr. Morgan,_ ” said Ms. Grainger. “ _I heard about that storm and they said on the news that someone fell overboard. Glad it wasn’t Kimi._ ”

“Certainly not,” said Henry. His expression strained with nervousness as he tried to figure out another lie in case she got any idea. Luckily, he could tell this was a new caller. Their regular case worker, on the other hand, might not be so easy to fool. “Don’t worry, we’re taking good care of her.”

“ _That’s good to hear,_ ” Ms. Grainger replied. “ _Sorry to call you during your vacation time, but I hope your family has fun!_ ” She hung up.

“That was pathetic!” Jake said.

“It was the best I could do!” Henry replied. “She was still fooled, wasn’t she?”

“No, you got lucky,” said Joan. “You know, now that I think about it, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened if we treated Kimi better.”

Henry did not respond. But really, really, really, really, really, really, perhaps the mind’s equivalent of the very center of the Earth, he knew that Joan was right.

And Jack, having obtained the permit needed to tap their room and phone, listened intently along with a detective with the Hawaiian State Police. The detective smirked at Jack and mouthed “Bingo”.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

The jungle smelled of rain. Kimi sat on the edge of the treehouse porch, her legs dangling over the side and her bare feet kicking the air. There was a deluge last night. It was so bad that she had to bring her tent into the treehouse while it poured millions of gallons and buckets that Kaitan and Julie collected for drinking water. In the distance, she could hear a monkey calling, and a raptor doing the same thing. Behind her, Julie was finishing up repairing the treehouse after the mess that was made last night.

She’d been watching the jungle for almost 20 minutes and she wasn’t bored at all. In fact, she was quite entertained. In a city like Melbourne, the noises of cars, people and construction are distracting. In the wild, the sounds of nature are soothing. She could get used to this, and she was already getting used to it. She turned her head to the south, after hearing the sound of a bird calling out. Although she couldn’t understand it, she strained to listen and see if she could get an idea. She could see the silhouette of the bird in the trees, and saw that it looked a little agitated.

She concluded that the bird was warning others away, lest it kick their asses.

The Jungle Girl finished up with the work and came out onto the patio while removing her top. When she sat down next to Kimi, the Australian girl blushed and looked away. “They’re tits,” Julie said. “You see them every day in the mirror. They’re part of your body and nudity and sex are completely different. Besides, I’m sweaty.”

“And you’re so… fit,” said Kimi. Her bust was the average size for someone her age, height and weight.

“Exercises,” Julie said with a smile. “Why, are you uncomfortable?”

“A little,” said Kimi.

“That’s fine,” said the Jungle Girl. “To be honest, I was a little uncomfortable wearing the standard-issue outfit the first time. But I grew into it and now it’s the only thing I’ll ever wear. And look at me! I’m fit! See these arms? They’ll make Michelle Obama blush! Then again, I guess I’ll never be like Serena Williams. Have you seen her? And she looks great! I don’t know if I could pull off her physique, but she does it effortlessly! I envy her!”

Kimi was agog and aghast. Julie was envious of someone? “But—you look great—how can you—”

“I know!” Julie laughed. “But I guess the best I can do is own my body. And my sexuality. I don’t go topless for some pervert on the interwebs, I do it for myself. There was this one Tumblr post I made where some pervert made some sick comment about my appearance. I was pissed off and gave him a new one—verbally, of course.” She sighed. “See, that’s the problem. Perverts want a savage woman, but one they can tame or can be tamed. That’s why there’s so much sick, twisted fetish art on the Internet. FUCK those bastards. They don’t own my body, OR my sexuality. I own it.

“And you know what? YOU own your body and YOUR sexuality, too. I know right now, it’s a little difficult to discuss sex, especially since you’re underage.” And for that reason, we will NOT show Kimi getting naked, and still wearing her now-dirt-covered castaway getup. “But your teenage years are when you try to figure out who you are in so many ways. If you want to be modest, be modest. If not, don’t be. No one else can make that choice for you. Just YOU.” She poked her finger in Kimi’s sternum.

“What does this have to do with being a jungle girl?” Kimi asked.

“It’s a fair question,” Julie replied. “But this has nothing to do with being a jungle girl; this has everything to do with being an independent and strong woman. And part of that is taking your sexuality, no matter what it is, and telling the world, ‘you don’t own me’. And this goes for men, too! You know how many sick pictures I’ve seen of Kaitan bound up like a piece of man meat? Way too many!

“Of course, I have my own kinks and I’m not ashamed of them, it’s just that they’re my kinks and I won’t shove them in anyone’s face.”

“You feel strongly about this,” said Kimi.

“Very,” said Julie. “And you know what? Getting back to you, I can certainly tell you it’s the same with your foster family. You have to power to make them stop. There are so many things you can do about it. You can tell the police, DHS or someone else and tell them, ‘my foster family is abusing me. Get me out of here!’ And you wouldn’t be any weaker for doing so! Asking for help is not a show of weakness, it’s acknowledging your situation might be a bit much. The Teo and Kaitan have helped me get used to life out here. And I owe them so much.”

“Thanks,” said Kimi.

Julie took the Australian and hugged her tightly. “You know,” she said. “I kinda wish you were my little sister.”

Kimi was a little flustered, before laughing. Julie patted her shoulder. “You know, I learned a lot in civilization and college. But I think this is where I truly became who I am. And for that reason, above all else, is why I want to stay a jungle girl.”

“I see,” said Kimi.

“And you’re not a temptress because you own your sexuality,” said Julie. “And neither are you a whore. You’re a person. Now come on, I’m gonna teach you how to fight!”

“Fight!?” Kimi asked.

“What!? You think I survived out here by slapping people?” Julie immediately let loose a fury of punches and kicks that made Kimi’s jaw drop in amazement. “Come on, let’s go down to the ground and get started!” she said while putting her top back on.

Before Kimi knew, Julie had taken her down into the clearing in front of the treehouse, watching Julie tape up her arms and throw some punches. The wet grass felt cool under her bare feet, but she was more worried about Julie. “Alright, grasshopper!” the Jungle Girl declared. “I am going to teach you the basics of fighting and self-defense!”

“Um, Julie, what are you—“

“YOU ARE TO ADDRESS ME AS SENSEI JULIE, YOU GOT THAT!?” she screamed like an over-the-top shonen manga hero.

“YES, JULIE-SENSEI!!”

“Much better!” Julie said. “Now then, I must tell you that I took karate for several years and did a little MMA in college, although it wasn’t actually competitive, just something I did—Whatever! Spread your feet out shoulder width apart!”

Kimi did that.

“Now, with your fists at your sides—not like that!—slowly extend your arm and fist like so.” Julie made a slow punch. Kimi apprehensively followed suit. She followed Julie through this exercise, going through the motions and feeling like an utter nutter (bad um, tsh!).

But after a while, Julie’s movements were getting faster. And so were hers. And as her movements got faster, Julie changed her stance into a powerful, frontal stance and it was here that Kimi realized what Julie was doing. “That’s it!” Julie said. “You got it!” her punches shot out and retreated back quickly. Julie stopped and walked up to Kimi, where she held her hands up for Kimi to punch. “Punch THROUGH your target. Follow through! It’s like a snap!”

Kimi threw the final punch that pushed Julie’s stiff arm backwards, and made the Jungle Girl hoot and holler in delight. “You did it!” she exclaimed.

Kimi beamed in delight and hugged Julie. The Jungle Girl happily rolled her eyes, but hugged her back, like the sister she wanted to be. “Thanks, Julie!”

“You’re welcome,” said the Jungle Girl. “Alright, let’s get back down to work. I’m going to teach you some basic self-defense moves and what to do if you get into a fight.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon working on some basic fighting and self-defense skills. Julie taught her the basic self-defense moves, like palming an opponent’s nose, and kicking them in the groin. Just in case, of course. She also taught her how to kick, particularly, the front kick, whereupon she lifted her leg up and extended it. Kimi actually knew how to do this, so it was easy for Julie to teach her. And the Jungle Girl was happy about that.

They finished the day with a kata and sparring match. The kata, the _Taikyoku Shodan_ , is a basic _Shotokan_ kata taught to white belts, and involves the _oi tsuki_ lunge punch, which Julie taught to Kimi earlier, and the low block, or _gedan barai_ and is done using the front lunge stance, or _Zen Kutsu Dachi_ , and the movements, or “ _embusen_ ” (meaning pathway) make something of an “I” shape. The author learned this kata as a white belt.

And as a cool-down exercise, Julie helped her practice proper punching technique.

By the end, Kimi was sweating, but endorphins and adrenaline were running throughout her blood vessels. “I feel great!” she panted excitedly.

“That’s awesome!” said Julie. “Come on, let’s go cool down and get some coconut milk and water. I know some great cocktails! ... Non-alcoholic, of course.”


	9. Sisters From Another Mister

Julie made a coconut-shell milk, water, etc., cocktail for her and Kimi. The biggest difference between hers and Kimi's was the alcohol that she added to her drinks. The alcohol content of these drinks, however, were minimal. In fact, Julie started out with no alcohol in her drinks, just some mango-coconut cocktails she shared with Kimi in the den of the treehouse, with little umbrellas stuck in the coconut halves they used as cups, where they talked about how Kimi wanted to be a jungle girl.

"So your dad was really into Tarzan?" Julie asked, sipping her drink.

"Yeah," Kimi replied. "He watched the Disney movie with me, too. That one was my favorite."

"I kinda liked that one, too," said Julie. "Except my favorite's always been  _Tarzan and His Mate_.

"What's that movie like?" Kimi asked.

"It's… kinda sexy," said Julie. "It'd probably be rated PG-13 nowadays, mostly because Jane gets naked in one scene that was deleted. Strange thing, though: in the original books, she didn't want Tarzan to go wild! In the movies, and even the Disney one, she embraces it!"

"I didn't know that," said Kimi.

"Well, after a while, once she gets used to it, she becomes a kickass jungle girl," said Julie. "By the way, this is nice, isn't it? Having some coconuts and a few drinks? It's like… no worries at all!"

"Like Hakuna matata?"

"Ohmispirits, I LOVED that movie!" Julie "AND that song! Hakuna matata! What a wonderful phrase!"

"Hakuna matata! Ain't no passin' craaaze!"

The author would include the lyrics to "Hakuna Matata", but because of certain copyright issues (and because Disney's lawyers will NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, YA HEAR ME!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!) the lyrics will not be copy/pasted onto the text. All that can be said, is that they both sang the song, albeit a bit off key, but with all of the enthusiasm of a Broadway singer. And it got a bit more enthusiastic as Julie added a little more booze to her drinks.

When Kaitan returned home, he found Julie slumped backwards on the chair, blabbering on about something or nothing, while Kimi sat next to her, trying to wake her up. It can be surmised that Julie's downfall in this case came not from her enthusiasm at being Sisters From Another Mister with Kimi, but her enthusiasm for certain drinks, particularly that Kahlua bottle that rested on the computer desk. And from this, the conclusion can be drawn that certain beverages with significant alcoholic content, mixed with the milk or water of coconuts, are not a pleasant idea to combine with the dweller of a tropical rainforest, whom has only been of legal alcoholic consumption age for two years.

TL;DR, 23-year-old jungle girls and coconut cocktails don't mix.

"I'm a fucking QUEEN!" she boasted. "No, just—just A Queen, Queen of the fuckin' JUNGLE! KAHLUA MATANA BITCHES!"

"She had way too much," Kimi summed up.

"Oh, Julie," Kaitan sighed, put his fists on his hips and shook his head at his mate.

"HEEEEYYYYYY, KAAAAAAAAIIII," she slurred. "Lookin' hot today!" She got up and started stroking his chiseled chest like a piece of man-meat. "How's my mate doing?"

"Julie, you're drunk," he said.

"I am not!" she denied until she stumbled. "Okay, maybe a little."

"I don't think I like you like that," said Kimi.

"Kimiiiiiii!" Julie moaned. "We're like, sisters from another sister—MISTER!"

Kaitan picked her up bridal-style, much to her dismay. "We're taking you to sleep it off," he said as she tried (the keyword here being TRIED) to thrash against him.

"BUT I DON'T WANNAAAAAA!" she whined.

"Julie, come on," he said as he started to get a little agitated at her. "You're acting more immaturely than Kimi."

"But she's a teenager!" she slurred.

"And right now, she's the adult in the room," he said as he laid her on the bed. "Just get some rest and come down when you're ready."

"You know, if we're sisters from another sis—I mean, mister, then you're her brother from another… I forgot."

"Because you're drunk," he said. "Get some rest."

And so she stayed in her bed, falling asleep instantly. He kissed her forehead, noting to himself how beautiful she looked when she was asleep. Just another thing he loved about her.

When she came downstairs the next morning, she had such a hangover that Kimi could feel it as she finished putting the flower crown on Kaitan's head. And it seemed that Kimi had already started to wear a buckskin top. Julie had her head down and her eyes covered while mumbling something about how inhumanly bright it was. Actually, the sun was the only light in the room and even then they only gave the basic need for light. Okay, the light filled the room up because it filled up the whole room, of course.

"You slept well," said Kaitan.

"How long did you sleep for?" Kimi asked.

"Well, she got to bed around 8 last night and it's 6:54 right now," said Kaitan.

Kimi counted with her fingers. Four hours to midnight, then 7—"Eleven hours!?"

"Shut uuuup!" Julie groaned.

She grabbed some coconut water and sat down on the chair. Downing some pills (obviously something like Advil), she glanced at Kaitan and Kimi and got a little bit of a chuckle. Had Kaitan been a big, hulking mass of muscular bulk, it would have made her laugh. But seeing his lean, medium-weight wrestler/swimmer/runner/gymnast-like physique wearing a flower crown and a lei made her laugh, anyways. "How do I look?" he asked.

"Like a hula guy," she said.

"That's a compliment," he replied.

"Flower crowns are the best," Kimi stated as if she did not want to hear any kind of response.

"Oh, and I think you owe an apology to Kimi," said Kaitan.

"For trying to dissuade her from being a jungle girl?"

"No, but that is not something you have to apologize for," he said. Kimi nodded.

"Yelling at her?"

"Have you done that yet?"

"Yes."

"Then what do you think?"

Julie didn't need to think about it that much, because she was still suffering the effects of that. "Sorry for getting drunk and embarrassing you to death," said Julie.

"You're forgiven," said Kimi. "So what are we going to do today? Are you finally going to teach me how to shoot a bow and arrow?"

"Sounds like  _A_  plan," said Julie.

"Take a walk," said Kaitan. "It should help clear up that hangover."

He didn't waiver at Julie's groan. "Come on," he said. "It's only 7 in the morning. I say you get ready and show Kimi the island."

"Fine," she said. "Let's get ready, Kimi."

They were ready within an hour.

As she looked over new plans for their treehouse—just an expansion, hopefully to fit some more visitors if need be—Kimi picked up the bow she had already made and straightened out her buckskin tank top. She already liked the feel of it on her skin, and noticed she was still cool in the humid heat. She certainly owed it all to Kaitan and Julie not only for making this, but for making it in a way that kept her cool.

Julie came downstairs, carrying a spear, her quiver, bow, a canteen, her snack belt and other supplies for Kimi to take, including the bow and quiver she was going to use herself. She handed Kimi's bow, quiver, deer knife and utility belt to her and beckoned the Australian to follow. Kaitan, who was stepping out of the kitchen, hugged and kissed Julie passionately. "Be careful out there," he said. "Some Pele scouts spotted them in the Southern Grassland."

"Don't worry," Julie replied. "We probably won't reach the grassland until the afternoon."

"Can't I be concerned?" he asked.

"Of course you can," she replied as she kissed him again. "I sometimes forget you've done this longer than I have."

He smiled and kissed her forehead again.

They bade him good-bye and rappelled down to the field in front of the treehouse. Julie took out her compass and after a couple minutes, pointed to the left, which happened to be the north. And thus, Julie and Kimi set out on their trek, singing "Hakuna Matata" to start the day.

The sun was shining over the entire island with not a single cloud in the sky. The sunlight, however, barely reached below the tree canopy, which was as thick as the proverbial pea soup. Or perhaps it should be the other way around, instead. Anywho, whatever little bits of sunlight that did break through the heavy tree cover spotlighted things like mushrooms, or plants that desperately reached up for the sunlight as if it was in its death throes and the sunlight was the only thing keeping it alive. A bit dramatic, but it certainly seemed that way.

Kimi had to be called over from one of those shafts of light.

After a while, Julie beckoned Kimi to follow her off the trail and up into the trees. Kimi went first, effortlessly climbing the trunk of the tree. Julie followed not long after. But when she got to the first branch of the tree, Julie cleared her throat. A gesture with her head told her to keep going. And she kept going, up and up and up and up and up. It was tiring and her arms began to burn worse than the first time she was made to climb a tree. A shout from Julie made her start using her legs more. And although her legs also hurt, it became a lot easier to keep climbing up and up to the tree. Already sweat had begun to soak her buckskin.

And then she finally reached the canopy.

Her eyes had so adjusted to the darkness of this part of the jungle that the sun was literally blinding. She had to close her eyes for a moment until they adjusted. And once she looked out, for the first time, she got an idea of the sheer expanse of the jungle, and by extension, the island.

The tops of the trees spread out all around her in an endless sea of green. A flock of birds flew out of the canopy. But did very little to give her an idea of just how big the jungle was. In fact, they looked like specks of dust in the distance, despite standing out from the green. But to the south, she could see a hint of the sea, with a little bit of the blue ocean standing out. Although, she was also convinced that it was her mind playing tricks on her, and was still the sky. Looking off to the west and to the east, she saw much of the same.

Upon looking to the north, or northeast, or whatever, she could see two rather large mountains, at least as far as she could tell, jutting up to interrupt the vast sea of green. Knowing from the map that the jungle, or at least the southern rainforest, ended somewhere, she suspected that the mountains had something to do with it. One mountain, if it could be called that, looked different from the other. A series of cliffs jutted out like steps from the slope.

She was filled with utter awe and astonishment as she held on to the upper-most branch of the tree. A new appreciation for the awesomeness of nature, and the island, began to take hold. And it was pretty obvious as to why Julie made her go up here. Standing in the tree, she was just a speck of nothingness in the wild. And yet, she felt immense pride at this, like she truly was a part of the jungle. She could barely contain a smile.

"So?" Julie asked. "Whaddaya think?

"Crikey!" she breathed.

"Ah, I used to love that show," Julie mused. "Just remember, you may be small to the jungle, but that doesn't make you important. As my fellow Teo say, 'Even the smallest insect has a purpose'."

Kimi ignored the part where Julie announced herself as a Teo, but she got the message.

Descending the massive tree was a chore in of itself. They had to jump onto other tree branches in order to get down safely, which, as Kimi found out about halfway down, was about as risky as climbing it. She jumped onto a branch and slipped before she reached out and grabbed a vine. She couldn't swing, but she was still relieved that she hadn't fallen to an instant death. And even then, she would have certainly become a permanent part of the jungle.

They kept going once they got to the floor until they came across a spring. Julie jumped in and Kimi followed. They showered underneath a small waterfall and refilled their canteens. Those canteens were filtered, of course.

And it was at this spring that Julie decided to bestow a little more knowledge to Kimi. "You know," she said. "I'm reminded of Bruce Lee when I see this."

"How?" Kimi asked.

"Be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

Kimi had no idea what she was talking about, and it showed.

Julie sighed. "Adapt," she said. "Adapting to whatever the jungle throws at me has helped me survive. Be fluid and be shapeless. In other words, go with the flow."

Kimi had already figured out that Julie had little idea what she was talking about, but "go with the flow" certainly registered with her and she nodded her head.

After this, the two pressed on.

After a while, the tree cover began to thin out and the sun peeked through. Julie had to cover her eyes. They came across a clear and clean stream that they had to cross holding their stuff above their heads like they'd seen in old movies and film reels. Once they were across, Julie squealed in excitement at the sight of a red-haired jungle cat about the size of a bobcat. "Kimi, this is Ginger," she said as she scratched behind the cat's ear. "Isn't she such a cute widdle kittyyyyy?"

"She's so cute!" Kimi replied, carefully petting the cat in case it lashed out at her. But she didn't.

The party, now of three, continued along their trek. Although cats, especially Greystoke cats, are independent creatures, Ginger followed Julie like she was a dog. Although, Kimi suspected Julie must have done something to win the kitty's trust and respect, otherwise the cat would not be following them.

It took an immeasurable amount of time, but Kimi suspected it may have been a few hours, until they finally emerged from the forest.

The rolling hills and flatland flared out in all directions, once again shaking Kimi's belief of the island. A cool breeze swept through the plain, creating waves in the grasses and flowers, flowing in Kimi's hair. She could see a herd of animals in the distance. They looked kind of big, but Kimi couldn't tell. They were just too far away. And before she knew it, Julie was already walking down to the little savannah.

There, she got down on her hands and knees. Kimi recognized that she was supposed to follow and promptly got down on all fours until she had caught up to Julie. Then the Jungle Girl stopped. Kimi stopped too and looked to Julie for what she was supposed to do next. But looking to her right to see Ginger watching these animals crouching to hide from her prey made her realize what Julie was doing.

Once she looked back at the Jungle Girl, she could see the primal readiness in her eyes. Kaitan and the jungle's influence had certainly taken hold of her. And now she'd become a beast in a woman's body. Kimi took a deep breath and began to try and become like Julie.

"Empty your thoughts," she heard from her left. She turned. Julie was still staring at the prey. "Take deep breaths. Empty your mind. Think of nothing except hunting. Let instinct take over."

Kimi closed her eyes and took deep breaths. She emptied her thoughts except for hunting. Instinct began to take over. She opened her eyes and slowly crept towards their prey, a small deer-like animal. She grabbed her knife. She licked her lips as she could already taste the meat.

Before she knew it, Julie lunged at the beast and tackled it. The rest of the herd ran, but Kimi could already hear Julie's primal sounds and the tearing of flesh. She snapped out of her little animal moment right as Julie, her body covered in blood, flipped up with her head to the sky and let loose an awesome scream that sent chills down Kimi's spine. But instead of being afraid, she was in awe and admiration. She looked so cool!

She crept up to Julie to see her going from primal to human. She wiggled her eyebrows as she pointed at the creature. "How about lunch?" she asked.

"You look so cool!" Kimi said.

"Yeah, I know," Julie laughed. "I learned from the best!"

She skinned the meat and built a fire pit, where she started a roaring fire to cook the meat. The rest of the carcass was left off to the side for the scavengers. That meant Ginger, who took to eating whatever she could off of it. "Look, sometimes it's tempting to just eat it, but until I have a stomach like a lion's, I'll grill my stuff," she said.

Kimi could not argue with that.

They ate their deer meat with water and berries. During lunch, Julie taught Kimi a few things about trickery. She pointed to a deer that was in battle with another one. The larger deer aggressively head-butted the smaller one. The other pretended that it wasn't willing to fight. This continued for several minutes until the smaller deer suddenly counterattacked, viciously head-butting the larger one until the larger deer ran off.

"See?" Julie asked.

Kimi nodded.

Once they were finished, Julie took her spear to show the Australian how to throw it. First, she showed the balance point, which was close to the tip of the spear. Next, she displayed the proper stance and finally, the throwing technique. She didn't throw it, because she wanted Kimi to do it. Once it was Kimi's turn, she helped the Ni/Sansei Australian find the proper stance and technique, helping her with the motions until she decided she was ready.

She did not have a run-up like would a javelin, but Kimi hurled the spear as hard as she could. Unfortunately, the spear wobbled in flight and landed the wrong way. "That's okay," said Julie. "First time, is all."

So they tried again. And again. And again. On the fifth try, Kimi finally found the right spiral. She pumped her fist when she got it.

Next, Julie decided it was time to show her how to use the bow and arrow. First, she took her bow and an arrow out, making Kimi follow her movements. Kimi did just that. But Julie wouldn't let her shoot the arrow until she got the right form down. It took a few minutes before Kimi finally got it right. And now Julie let her pick up her own bow to use.

Kimi notched the arrow into the bowstring. She followed Julie as she drew the string back until her right hand touched her cheek. She waited until Julie released her arrow and followed suit. It was pretty clear who'd had more experience with the bow and arrow, as Julie's arrow hit the makeshift target dead-on. Kimi's flew off to the side.

So she watched Julie and how she aimed. She made her adjustments and released her arrow. Her excitement jolted as it hit the target almost dead-on. "YES!" she cheered as she pumped her fist and hummed the melody of "Let It Go".

They spent an hour working on their archery skills until they decided to finish. After this, they continued their trek into the grassland, where upon which they found a boulder that Julie climbed to get a better view. She scanned the horizon, seeing a few other herds of animals and a flock of birds in the distance. She shrugged as she put her spear on her shoulder.

And then she saw them coming.

She spotted a mass of animals coming out of the northeast. She trained and strained her eyes to look on, but couldn't get much of an idea of who they were. But they were moving WAY too fast to be Pele or Teo. As far as she knew, neither tribe used mounts.

It was them.

She dropped her bow and quiver. Then she brought her hands to her mouth and made an impromptu megaphone, which she used to make the sound of an angry big cat warning them away. The sound of the call—er, warning—carried throughout the rolling meadow and hills, disturbing some of the animals. As they ran away, the intruders turned in their direction. Julie called again, but they kept coming. One more call did not do the job. Instead, the sound of a blowing conch shell like a cavalry horn ripped through the meadow.

Julie drew an arrow. Kimi frantically did the same. They waited until the enemy came closer and closer. Kimi could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest.

As their guests came closer, Julie pointed her arrow at the ground. Once the deer-steeds were close enough, she let one loose that struck the ground in front of the leader. He stopped and although the deer made deer-ish sounds, they looked like baying horses. "I am Julie of the Jungle!" she announced, translated from the Greystokian language. "Mate of Karza, or as he is now known, Kaitan; member of the Teo Tribe! You have entered the territory of my Tribe. Who are you?"

"Leave us, Julie!" the leader replied. "You called us!"

Julie cursed under her breath. "Well, I'm ordering you to go back!"

"You are a fellow paleman!" the leader replied. Kimi got a better look and found out that the leader definitely looked white, and she probably wouldn't have known, since he wore the same clothing as the Teo did.

But there were additions.

Kimi had already seen  _Mad Max 2_ , and came to the conclusion that the outfits these blokes wore were like a primitive counterpart to the outfits worn by Lord Hummungus's henchmen. Shoulder pads, tipped with bamboo spikes, wooden gauntlets, elbow, shin and kneepads added to their already fierce appearance. And they even wore menacing warpaint that looked nothing like the designs Julie and Kaitan once showed her of Teo warriors.

"We know who you are," said the leader. "This is our territory. Get out while you still can."

" _Your_  territory?" Julie laughed. "Since when? Then why were you disguising yourself as Teo and Pele warriors?"

"Mind your own business!" the bearded white man snapped back.

"So that IS you!"

"Are you TRYING to start a fight?" the leader asked.

"Nope!"

"Go away or I'll shoot you!" Kimi said.

"Who is this?" the leader asked.

"My apprentice," Julie replied. "And if you touch her, I'm gonna kill you."

"I don't care," the leader hissed. "Leave our territory this instant!"

"WHOSE territory?"

"OUR territory!"

"Oh, so you're resorting to threats now?"

"This is non-negotioable!"

"I wonder why?" she asked. "No really, I don't know why. What's so important?"

"Never mind! Only the Captain may order me!" the leader snapped. He motioned to them to move. Kimi released an arrow that struck at the feet of the leader's steed.

The leader glared at Julie and Kimi before shouting some orders to his subordinates. To Kimi's surprise, they turned and fled. For a moment, Kimi was relieved. But when she looked at Julie, the Jungle Girl still had her arrow drawn. "When I tell you to, you run," said Julie.

"Where?"

"To the trees," Julie replied.

A shouted echoed through the grassland. The enemies turned and charged at Julie and Kimi. Julie released an arrow, which struck a man in the bamboo armor. "RUN!" Julie shouted as she drew another arrow and released it.

Kimi took off towards the woods. Julie dropped her bow and picked up a spear. As the enemies got closer, she thrust the spear at one, hitting him in the throat and knocking him off his steed. She picked her bow up and shot another one. But they passed by her. She spun and shot another one. They were fast and outran her arrow. But another arrow hit the leader in the back. The leader called to his men. Three riders turned and pointed their spears at her.

Julie shot two of them in quick succession. The deer sped past her. The third rider threw his spear at her, forcing her to duck under it. And forced her to watch in horror at what happened next.

The leader, whose armor was thick enough to stop the arrow, pulled a blowdart out. He shot Kimi in the legs. Her right leg, which was hit first, instantly went numb. The next blow dart struck her left leg. More blow darts, released by the others, hit her in the back. Julie frantically stood and released another arrow. But not before Kimi was scooped up and laid on the back of the lead deer. The leader shouted more orders and they turned towards Julie.

The Jungle Girl released another arrow, but had to duck as a blow dart came right to her. But then she felt the pinch of a dart hitting her leg. She instantly lost her footing, but the Jungle Girl refused to give up and shot another arrow from her kneeling position. When one of the enemies got close enough, she grabbed her spear and thrust it into the man's chest. He went down without struggle. The other enemies proceeded to surround her, pointing their blow darts at her.

She was saved by Ginger. The cat jumped on top of the rock and tackled an enemy off his steed before lunging for the legs of another steed. The leader panicked and ordered his men to follow him, but not before Ginger took down another. Julie struggled to stand up and released another arrow.

But the remaining enemies had already gotten away. Julie could only fall off the boulder and land on the ground. She knelt, but raised her hear to the sky and released a roar/scream/cry filled with anger, hate, frustration, despair and any other negative emotion you could think of.


	10. Welcome to Paradise?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimi is kidnapped and taken to a Jonestown-like cult village, while Julie and Kaitan try to figure out what to do next.

Julie struggled to her feet, or at least her still-working left foot. Unfortunately, she collapsed as she had difficult standing on the numb leg. In fact, it was nearly impossible. She struggled to hop on her left foot, making her way over to one of the deer that remained. Said deer was eating the grass, not once forgetting about the rider that once sat on his back. Her grunts caught the deer's attention, which recognized that she did not pose a threat if she could barely walk.

She collapsed out of frustration and pulled a Band-Aid, a gauze pad and some Neosporin out of her utility belt pouch. She reached down to her right shin and position the gauze pad right near the dart before pulling it out. A grunt escaped her lips until she poured some of her canteen water onto the wound.

She cleaned and dressed the wound before standing up. She couldn't see the attackers anymore and quickly realized her window of opportunity to chase them had closed. But instead, she turned her attention to the dazed enemy coming to not too far from her. She didn't have time to get up. Instead, she crawled over to him and socked him on the jaw. Ginger ran up and tore the man's arm brace off while Julie lashed his hands together.

"I WILL NEVER DIE AT THE HANDS OF—"

"SHUT UP!" Julie interrupted. She punched him again and again out of frustration, only stopping when Ginger rubbed her head against her shoulder. "I'm taking you back to my treehouse. And then you're going to show me where your friends live."

"Are you afraid, Jungle Girl?" the enemy asked.

"I'm angry," she said. "And you're not going to like me when I'm angry."

She lifted the enemy up, having already begun to feel just a little bit of feeling return. But she struggled over to the deer that she'd found. She held her hand out to the deer. It stared at her. She got closer to the deer until she reached out and grabbed the deer's reins. To her surprise, the deer did not run nor did he attack her. She smiled and although she struggled, she managed to pull herself up onto the deer's back.

Now the hard part came. It took a little bit of (reluctant) explanation from the enemy to get an idea of how to ride a deer, until she got the jist of it. She pulled the enemy over to his deer and forced him to mount the deer. Once that was done, she took the rope and made him follow her back to her and Kaitan's treehouse.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kimi was out cold. How long she was out for, she didn't know. Because the next thing she remembered, she was looking up at a wooden, fortress-like outpost. The sun was setting and it became clear to the Australian that she had been out for a very, VERY long time.

They passed through the gate of this fortress and into a village. The people here looked very much like the white people that surrounded her in Melbourne, which only confused her. But then she remembered that Capt. Turan said the island was an open secret amongst people in the shipping industry. Could it be possible that these people came to Greystoke because of this?

But aside from them, members of the native population walked among them. They talked and laughed with the whities like old friends. And they wore the same outfits of grass and animal skins, but did not look like the  _Mad Max_  armor her kidnappers wore. But to this newcomer, the shiny, happy faces on the people milling about, farming and making clothes, looked almost utopian. And it intrigued her and made her think that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be too bad.

But then she remembered that she was kidnapped. And the shiny, happy world these people lived in became full of doubt.

The next thing she knew, the steed she was on stopped. After a minute of waiting, her captor picked her up and flung her over his shoulder as he carried her over to what looked like a stage in the middle of this village. The captor deposited her on the wooden stage, albeit a bit rough and she grunted. She wanted to get up, but when she lifted her hands up to her face, she realized that her wrists were bound together by rope. It was odd that they had to tie her up like this. And she didn't even know what they were going to do with her.

"Hello there," said the figure sitting on the throne. "I apologize for the treatment. You! Cut the ties!" An attacker cut the ropes binding her wrists. She gingerly sat up and realized that whatever knocked her out made her groggy and a little out of it. But she looked up at the man in front of her.

He wore a ship captain's uniform, with some island modifications to it. A cape covered his shoulders, and he wore a Hawaiian chief's helmet. She forgot what it was called. And on top of that, he wore a loincloth made of grass and beads.

A person walked up to her and offered her a bowl of water. She took it eagerly. "I apologize for your treatment," he said. "However, I hope you are forgiving. I am the Captain. As you can see, we are but a humble village. What's your name?"

"Kimi," she said.

"Welcome to Paradise, Kimi," he said. Several women walked up to her and placed some leis around her neck. Then they lifted her up and led her to the front of the stage.

The water must have had something in it, because it was doing something to her. The Captain began to look almost divine or something. She blinked her eyes several times as the Captain spoke. But she could barely tell what was going on. And yet, she was drawn to this man. She held out her hands and walked closer to him. This man was like God in her eyes. "We will take care of you, Kimi," she heard the man say. "Your worries are gone. Here, you will live in total happiness."

"Sounds fun," was the only thing Kimi could say. The women picked her up and led her away from the Captain and into a hut.

There, more women stood and greeted her. "Sister!" she heard them calling her. "Welcome into our  _Ohana_!"

In the back of her mind, Kimi knew something was wrong. But the water she'd drank earlier had clouded her mind, and she walked into this crowd of women, who were all hugging her and lavishing her with attention.

She was happy, but it was a false happiness.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Julie got back to the treehouse not too long after Kimi was kidnapped. "KAITAAAAAANNNN!" she called out.

Kaitan was excited at first, but once he saw that the only person accompanying Julie was not Kimi, but some dude dressed up like a jungle version of a  _Mad Max_  villain, he quickly rappelled down onto the clearing as Julie slid off the deer and was barely able to stand on her right leg. "What happened!?" Kaitan asked.

"Those fuckers appeared," Julie hissed. "I told them to go away, but they attacked us and took Kimi!"

"Why didn't you go after them!?" he asked.

"Look at my leg!" she replied. Kaitan looked down at the Band-Aid on her shin. "Blow darts. The one I got must have been full of Novocain or something like that. Then they got Kimi with a tranquilizer."

"And who's that?" Kaitan asked. Julie pulled the man off of the deer mount, which had taken to the grass with gusto. She pulled the man up and showed him to Kaitan.

"Karza!" the man spat. "I finally meet you!"

"Yeah, but you're looking pretty beat up," said Kaitan. "And it's Kaitan now. So, now that we have you, I want to ask you a few things. Namely, who in name of the Spirits are you?"

"I already asked him that," said Julie. "Heeeee… didn't answer."

"Damn," Kaitan breathed. "Fair enough. Well, let's get right to it. You are going to tell and show us where your village is.

"The village is not to be revealed until The Time Is Right!" said the attacker.

"Enough with the cult crap!" Julie snapped. "You want me to rip your head off!?"

"Only the Captain may send me to the next world!"

"Yeah, and I already sent some of your buddies to the Next World!" Julie replied. "Forget it, let's take him upstairs. And tell the researchers about Kimi. And that it was my fault."

"YOUR fault!?" Kaitan asked as he pulled the attacker along with him. "Julie, that's crazy!"

"Huh?" she stopped her shuffling so that Kaitan could hold on to her.

"You wanna know whose fault it was? It was his."

"I didn't do anything!" Kaitan kicked him.

"Come on, let's go ask this guy some questions."

Once in the treehouse, Kaitan redressed her wound and gave her a much-needed foot massage. She calmed down thanks to her boyfriend's efforts and thanked him for doing so.

Their attention soon turned to the man who was part of the crew that kidnapped Kimi. They sat him down in their little parlor, tied up and between the two of them. Julie muttered something about wishing that Ginger was a dog, and not a cat. But the man could tell Julie had a bone to pick with him just by the way she glared daggers into his very being. That, and she'd made it pretty obvious the moment she punched him.

"Now you're going to answer some questions," the real-life successor to Tarzan said as he walked around the attacker. "That girl your friends took was under OUR protection. Julie was teaching her the ways of the jungle. And they were REALLY starting to hit it off, like sisters." He bent down in front of the attacker. "And right now, knowing her as well as I do, I think your best bet is to talk. Because when she's angry, you'll know it."

The attacker looked at Julie and Julie looked at him. She stopped scratching her nose and looking like a dork to crack her knuckles and give him the Evil Eye. But even with this fumble, Julie was still intimidating, and the attacker flinched. Kaitan smirked, knowing they'd gotten through. "I suggest you at least tell us where it is she was taken," said Kaitan.

"I can't," said the attacker. "Only those Chosen may find Paradise."

"Ah, fuck," Julie breathed. "He's gonna spout more cult slogans!"

"We are not a cult!"

"Heard it a million times!" said Julie. "You must be a cult if you deny it!"

"Julie, I don't think that type of thinking is going to help us," said Kaitan.

But that didn't matter to the still-defiant attacker, as he spat on the floor. Kaitan was not amused, and rubbed his face. "Tell you what?" he asked. "You can help us out, and we'll just let you go. No strings attached, eh?"

"You are SO Canadian," Julie laughed. The tone of her laugh had Kaitan knowingly look back at her.

"And then we'll take ya to Timmie's, eh?" Kaitan continued. "I tell ya what, the Tim Bits are the best, eh?" Julie's laughter was uproarious now.

"What?" the attacker asked. "I cannot tell you where it is. Paradise must be found, by those who look for it."

"Another slogan!?" Julie hissed. "Why, you—"

"WAIT!" Kaitan held his hand out as Julie was about to throttle him. She stopped, as he was deep in thought. "Paradise must be found, by those who look for it."

"It's a metaphor!" said Julie. "It's their beliefs and their hiding place!"

"Alright," said Kaitan. "I have a better idea. Can you PLEASE show us where this 'Paradise' is?"

"No," said the attacker.

"Please?" Julie asked.

"No."

"Pretty please, or I'll feed you to my kitty friend Ginger?"

"No."

"Pretty please or we'll take you to the Teo or Pele?"

"Oh GOD, no!" the attacker panicked. "Yes, I will take you! But the Teo cannot come!"

"Oh yes, they WILL!" said Julie. "That's part of the deal. Your buddies have been attacking their trading routes, Spirits know why, and you can bet they kind of have a bone to pick with you."

"No other outsiders," the attacker insisted.

"WHY, YOU!" Julie yelled angrily.

"Deal," said Kaitan.

"WHAT!?"

"I'll take the risk," said Kaitan. He pulled Julie closer to him and whispered in her ear. "We'll tell the Teo where their base is located once we find it."

"You've got a deal," said Julie.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kimi awoke the next morning with a heavy head. The room she was in was still dark. There was no light inside or coming from the outside, which made it hard for her to find her way around when she stood up. She stumbled and realized she was in a bunk bed once she grabbed on to the nearest post.  _So that's it_ , she thought to herself. Speaking out loud was not going to be a good idea if she wanted to effortlessly sneak out like Julie had trained her to do. But she also couldn't hear or smell anything. All she had was her touch.

Which, despite not having been trained in this just yet, would be sufficient enough. Julie didn't need to train her in using all five senses—then again, she never really got the chance. She stretched out her arms to feel for more bedposts and prodded the floor with her bare feet. The floor felt cool and wooden. As far as she could tell, she was in a wooden cabin. That was confirmed when she reached the wall and felt the logs that made up the entire little cabin. She tried to look in between the cracks in the wall, but couldn't see much.

She followed the wall for the next few moments. With no way of seeing the sun, or any kind of clock, she didn't know how long it took her. But she finally found the door and stepped outside. And she immediately had to cover her eyes, because the sunlight was so bright, and it was surprisingly painful. "Bloody hell," she cursed under her breath while hiding her eyes from the sun.

She was relieved when her eyes FINALLY adjusted to the sunlight. She felt like a cave-dwelling bat that had some out in the middle of the day and the sun scrambled their vision. Now that her eyes were once again adjusted to the light, she got a better view of the place she was taken.

The village was larger than she remembered, stretching out over a wide area and populated with a LOT of people. They toiled away on the small farms with the crops or the animals, which included deer. Noticing that some people were working on the leather and wood Mad Max armor she'd seen earlier, it became clear that just about everyone had something to do in the village. She looked back at the gate and saw that it didn't extend very far. However, from the amount of time it had taken them to whisk her away to here, even she could tell this was in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Like earlier, she saw that a lot of people were smiling. But the way they smiled creeped her out, like they were forced to smile. And she figured out pretty quickly that this place wasn't all it cracked up to be. She couldn't quite tell exactly, but it felt like some creepy aura resided over the village.

She watched two women discussing their crops for the day and decided to go up to talk to them. "Excuse me?" she asked. "Where am I?"

"You're in Paradise, young lady," one of the women said, her accent sounding American.

"I know that, but WHERE am I?" she asked.

"Paradise must be found by those who look for it," the woman replied.

"I thought I was IN Paradise," Kimi said. Julie's sarcasm must've begun to rub off on her.

"That's the spirit!" the woman chirped.

Kimi turned away and growled before storming away from the two women in a huff while muttering something about how they acted so strangely.

This earlier sense of dread made her walk about the village while looking over her shoulder in both ways as if she was being watched. She could see the same Mad Max blokes here and there, occasionally turn to glare at her, making her turn away to avoid their harsh gaze. She was certainly worried about them and the fear that they might take her back to that pitch-black house. Even still, she couldn't quite figure things out.

Every now and then, people came up to her and talked to her like she was a little kid. Or, in the case of one man, a little TOO friendly. That didn't mean she didn't appreciate their attention, far from it. It's just that, at one point, she had to let them know that she was getting a little uncomfortable with their advances. To her surprise, they eased off the greetings and let her have her space.

That's when she ran into a man wearing robes. White robes like a priest, to be exact. Who the hell wears robes like that in the tropics? "Oh, sorry," she said.

"That is alright, my child," he said with the same kinda creepy smile, albeit with some warmth behind it. "How are you liking Paradise so far?"

"It's nice, but… I kind of liked the jungle better," said Kimi.

"You like it?" the man asked. "But you said you wanted to be here."

She looked at him as if he was either deaf, crazy, or ignored her. "Right, because I found a place I can't find," she said. She really needed to work on her sarcastic replies.

"What do you mean?" the man asked. "You came to us, begging to be taken away."

"No, I was fucking KIDNAPPED," she replied. "Some of your blokes shot me with fucking blowdarts!"

"That never happened," the man replied. "I think you're imagining things. Why don't you have some water?"

"Are you deaf!?" she snapped her fingers near his ears. "I. WAS. KID. NAPPED. I'm not fucking stupid!"

"Guard?" the priestly man gestured to the Mad Max bloke. "I think she's going crazy. She claims she was kidnapped."

"That fucker attacked me and Julie yesterday!" Kimi replied, pointing at the man.

"Miss! Miss! You're hysterical! There is no Julie! You're safe now!"

"Don't touch me!" she said. "I'm leaving!"

"Where will you go?" the priest asked.

"Back to the jungle!" Kimi replied. She was about to say more when his words began to sink in a little deeper. They sounded familiar, like what Henry used to do to her.

And now realization dawned on her. She'd been kidnapped by a cult.

She wanted to panic and run. NOW. But, the sensible part was against it, and made her think twice about it. She had absolutely no doubt that Julie was going to come and rescue her. In fact, the Jungle Girl had already set out on the couple-hours journey to reach Paradise Village in a couple minutes ago. And since she knew Julie wanted to know more about this place, she might as well get the information.

"You're right," she said. "I'm acting crazy! Silly me!"

Until it was time to get out of here, she was going to play cult member.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

The Captain sat at his desk, staring at the men in front of him. They all shrank from his gaze, except for one, and that was the man who grabbed Kimi yesterday. That very subject was on the mind of The Captain, as he stared at the man, who did not waver one bit. Instead, he was defiant in the face of The Captain's glare, a glare that with one look, could make a man shiver and wish he was dead, like the man who had to excuse himself from the meeting.

"You came across Julie the Jungle Girl?" he asked.

"Correct," said the lead attacker.

"WHAT were you thinking?" he asked.

"I was thinking that—"

"That face you made," said The Captain, "You are unsure why."

"I told them they were in our territory!"

"It doesn't matter!" The Captain replied. "Logan was captured, and you captured a friend of Julie the Jungle Girl. Knowing her reputation, she is going to come here and attack!"

"I did as you ordered!"

"And you should have disregarded the order when you found out who it was!" The Captain interrupted. "Here is what we're going to do; you take the girl out of here and use her as a bargaining chip to get Logan back. Got it?"

"Got it!"


	11. Kimi's Escape

Just as Kimi had suspected, Julie and Kaitan were setting out to rescue her.

But first, they had to get their new steeds on their side.

Katian pulled the attacker (Logan) along with him, bound in rope vines and stripped of his Mad Max armor. Julie had already taken to his wrist guards with aplomb, which she combined with her taped-up wrists and ankles in anticipation of having to fight the bad guys. Kaitan shoved Logan in front of one of the deer that they intended to ride, albeit with some concerns and nervousness. How Julie had so easily gotten the deer to like her was beyond him. But he suspected that the deer emphasized with her struggle, and decided to help.

He walked up to the first deer, about as tall as he was, with his hand held out. The deer watched him while chewing on the grass it—er, _he_ , because of the buck’s pretty good-sized antlers—had already started to take a liking to. Kaitan was confident in his abilities, but he was a little nervous, and it showed. He respected the buck, walking up to him slowly, but confidently, giving him the same confident expression he gives to all the animals of Greystoke Island and it worked. The buck nuzzled his hand and his chest, allowing the Jungle Dude to pet him.

Julie’s mount had already taken a liking to her, as it eagerly ate the corn pieces out of her hand while she petted him. Kaitan also pulled some seeds out of his belt and fed them to the deer, which it also gladly accepted. “Were you nervous?” Julie asked.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s a deer.”

Logan, the bad guy, rolled his eyes before Kaitan mounted his new steed and then grabbed him and pulled him up onto the back of the deer while sitting his spear on his lap. Julie also proceeded to mount, and kept her sword from falling off her waist, as she had not done this yet. She adjusted herself in her seat while she waited for Kaitan.

And now the preparation was complete. They kicked the sides of their mounts and set off.

Julie already knew the route through the jungle to the Southern Grassland, so she led the way for the first part of the journey. They passed the spring she and Kimi came across, led the deer mounts through the river and finally into the wide expanse of the Southern Grassland.

The remains of Logan’s comrades were in a state of decay and being picked apart by scavengers. A wild dog that had wandered over to the site was chased away by eagles that found a deer carcass to be too good to pass up. Some more of those scavengers ripped Logan’s comrades apart and looked up at him before getting back to their little dinner. Logan gulped as he remembered that nature was sometimes—no, not sometimes, ALWAYS—cruel.

Kaitan turned and pulled on the warrior’s binds and said, “Alright, buddy. You’re the guide, so start guiding us.”

“To the northeast,” Logan replied.

“Generally, or is it due northeast?” Julie asked.

“Generally,” said Logan. “I will tell you when to change direction.”

“Perfect,” said Kaitan. “So… now what?”

“Kick the deer in the side and act like it’s a horse,” said Logan.

“Horrorshow. Let’s go!” Julie said, lightly kicking the deer in the side, spurring it into a brisk, stable trot. Kaitan did the same, and his deer followed suit as they rode to the northeast in the direction of Kimi and the Paradise Village.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

The thing Kimi hated most about playing cult acolyte was the part where she had to learn the cult’s ridiculous theology. The “teacher”, if she could be called that, yammered on and on and on to kids a lot younger than Kimi was about how The Captain saved them all, they owed their lives to him, etc., etc., etc. Her voice was so aimed at juvenile minds that sounded completely inane and vapid to the relatively more mature teenager sitting in their midst.

Her so-called teacher seemed to notice this, if the glares she sent Kimi’s way were any indication. She just knew the teacher was suspicious of her. The bored expression she displayed certainly didn’t help her case, and neither did the times she rolled her eyes at some ridiculous claim the teacher made. In a way, it made her think that this might be what Christianity looks like to outsiders. Then she remembered that the teacher was glaring at her again, and thus she sat up straight in her seat. The other kids laughed, which felt embarrassing, to say the least.

“Well, Kimi?” the teacher asked. “What do you know about The Captain?”

“Um, he was a good captain?” Kimi asked. “You said something about him being in the Navy?”

“Yes, I repeated that!” the teacher huffed. “Were you even listening?” Kimi nodded frantically, if only to get the teacher to back off for now. It seemed to work, because she turned her usual blank, brainwashed smile back to the other kids. “Remember, children: The Captain saved us ALL. And he loves us all.”

 _That’s the fifth time she’s said that_ , Kimi thought. The teacher wouldn’t know she thought that, because she was sitting straight up and pretending to pay attention. One of the little boys next to her seemed enthralled not by the teacher, but by Kimi. And the boy’s staring was incredibly awkward and just as distracting as the teacher’s boring and banal lecture. The teacher noticed this too, and stopped her lecture to confront the boy.

“Michael?” she asked. “Does the new Seeker interest you more than the story of The Captain?”

“I was just curious!” he said.

“About what?” Kimi scooted away from the boy, feeling incredibly awkward and nervous about the entire situation. The gears in the teacher’s head began to turn, as if she was coming up with some new idea to indoctrinate Kimi. She didn’t notice the guards in their Mad Max outfits approaching Kimi. But she had her target right in her sights.

“Tell me, Kimi,” said the teacher. Kimi had already begun to scratch her nose before quickly reverting back into high school mode and sit up straight. “I heard you were living in the jungle before you Sought us out. What was it like?”

Kimi could see right through the teacher’s intentions with that question. And now it was time to turn the tables. “It’s dull,” she said sarcastically. “It’s nothing but swinging through trees, acting like a monkey and you don’t have anyone telling you what to do.”

Obvious exaggeration is obvious.

But her plan worked. The kids couldn’t tell she was obviously being sarcastic and got excited about the possibility of having no one to tell them what to do. “No one?” Michael, the inquisitive little scamp from before, asked.

“No one,” Kimi replied. For the sake of it, she did not include Julie.

“What else do you do?”

“Hunt. Fight animals. Be wild.”

The kids were getting excited. And Ms. Indoctrinator was getting angry. Or at least cross, since her eyebrows were furled, but her posture hadn’t changed a bit.

“So you take pride in your savagery,” said the teacher. “No wonder you came to us.”

“Yeah,” Kimi replied. “I was getting REAL bored with freedom.”

The teacher narrowed her eyes and focused on the petulant Kimi. This got worse when she said, “And I know Julie the Jungle Girl.”

The kids all gasped and chattered. The teacher had enough and grabbed Kimi by the arm and dragged her away.

Then, the Mad Max blokes walked up to her and grabbed Kimi, then wrapped a blindfold around her eyes and a gag around her mouth. While Kimi tried to fight back, they tied her wrists behind her back. “WHAT are you DOING!?”

“We’re taking her away,” said the leader.

“Leo, this is madness!”

“Captain’s orders!”

“What?”

“I said, Captain’s. Orders.”

The teacher back down and nervously gulped. “I understand,” she said, her voice quivering. “Be on your way, Harold.”

The lead goon—er, Harold—nodded and dragged the still-struggling Kimi over to his deer and mounted it, where he sat her in front of him and set off.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Julie bit down into the fruit and ripped the piece of like she would with raw meat. As she chewed, Logan watched her with several shades of disgust and revulsion. This made her glare at their hostage as well. She had little time for his judgmental opinion of her.

The tree they rested under was the only one in the field for a long distance, save for the tree line in the distance. Claw marks showed where cats had climbed all over it, and a few birds’ nests housed some eggs that Kaitan was inspecting. “Those birds are hearty,” he said to himself before jumping down onto the grassland.

“How can you live like this?” Logan asked.

“Like what?”

“Like savages!”

“We do not!” Julie replied. “We don’t live like savages, we ARE savages!”

“For lack of a better term,” said Kaitan. “Also says the guy wearing grass armor.

Logan glared at the both of them, still apparently unable to comprehend the decisions they made. “And the girl you took was my apprentice,” said Julie. “Unless you already knew that.”

“You said that,” said Logan.

Julie grimaced and looked away. Until she saw how he was looking at her up and down, that is. A mischievous grin appeared on her lips as she could see a mile away that this cult had a few issues with sex and sexuality. So she stretched out, showing off her fit, toned, sexy body while Logan looked away in embarrassment and shame. Kaitan could see what she was doing, and rolled his eyes, while smiling as she flaunted her sexy body to the cultist. She winked at him, blew him a kiss and gave him a seductive look.

“I will not let myself be tempted!” Logan strained. “What are you doing!?”

“I dunno,” she said as she slipped part of her bra strap down her shoulder.

Logan turned away and started to run, but Kaitan tripped him up. After he fell flat on his face, the Jungle Dude put his foot on his back before pulling him up and taking him over to the deer steed. “Julie, we should be going again,” he said.

Julie dropped the juicy fruit and mounted her deer steed.

They set out and continued riding for what seemed like a long time. The expanse of the Southern Grasslands, with few trees and other markers, made it hard for them to really tell how far they’d gone on for. The island itself is rather large, of course, estimated to be either the size of the Big Island or the same area, but not shape, as Long Island. They were used to this, of course.

After some time, they could see something in the distance. They stopped at the top of a rolling hill where Julie pulled a looking glass out of her belt and looked off in the distance. “I see… five of them,” she said. “Looks like they’re moving fast and in our direction.”

“Is it a herd?” Logan asked.

“They’re in some kind of formation,” said Julie. “I think they might be a herd.”

She watched them for a little while longer. As they got closer, she could make out the shapes and the formation. “They’re deer… and someone’s riding them. And they’re wearing the same thing our friend is wearing.”

Logan stirred, and his expression made it clear he didn’t know what was going on. His shrug confirmed this suspicion, but Kaitan and Julie exchanged skeptical glances. Julie started her deer steed in the direction of the incomers, with Kaitan following right behind her. And as they got closer, they could see that they were indeed the same men who attacked Kimi and Julie the previous day.

Speaking of Kimi, she could already tell that she was sitting in front of her captor, but couldn’t exactly seer that, since she was blindfolded, bound and gagged, but she could feel something like the neck of a deer in front of her, and straw armor behind her while holding her in place. But it gave her time to think of a way to get out of this situation as soon as they stopped. And, to her surprise, she felt them coming to a stop so fast they almost threw her forward. The stamping of the deer could be felt, and she waited for it to stop.

“There they are!” the man holding her, Leo, said, with almost sadistic glee. “It’s Julie and Karza!”

The Jungle Couple rode up to the troupe of goons and stopped in their tracks about 5 yards from the enemy. Logan, sitting behind Kaitan, was surprised, but not unhappy. Kimi was blindfolded and gagged with her wrists bound sitting in front of the lead deer with the leader

“Give Logan back!” Leo, the leader, called. His demand this early in the negotiation didn’t give Julie much confidence in what the negotiation held.

“Why do I get the feeling he’s going to try and double-cross us?” she asked Kaitan.

“Give us the girl, first!” Kaitan replied. “We don’t want your friend with us anymore!”

“HEY!”

“NO!” Leo snapped. “Logan, first!”

“WHY?” Julie asked.

“Mind your own business!”

To say this was stupid was an understatement. Hell, even the man’s companions weren’t happy with his defiant antics. One of them even whispered something to him, but he just rolled his eyes and said something to him about not questioning him. “Leo!” Logan called. “Just give them the girl! It’s our fault to begin with!”

“See, even HE knows!” Julie said.

“NO.” Leo said firmly. His mates groaned and one threatened to whack him.

“What’s the point!?” Kaitan asked. “Trying to sound tough or something!?”

“Shut up, Karza!”

“It’s Kaitan!” he snapped.

Julie’s already thin patience was wearing even thinner. “I rode halfway across the island for this?” she muttered to herself.

Even Kimi was getting impatient. While this ridiculous non-negotiation went on, she did her best to try and free herself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely successful. The binding on her wrists were tight, and her hands were positioned in such a way that made it hard for her to even move her hands and wrists, much less pick at the knot. Her low, but audible growl caught Leo’s attention and he grabbed her hair and pulled it back. “Quiet, you little brat,” he growled. “Don’t even think about trying to escape!”

“HEY!” Julie called out while drawing her sword. “Touch her again and I’ll come over there myself!”

“I DARE YOU!”

“What an idiot,” Kaitan muttered. Out of frustration, he grabbed Logan and shoved him off his deer mount. Logan WAS tempted to yell at him, but he saw it a better idea to just run over to his fellow cult members, where he was greeted happily.

“Alright, you got your buddy,” said Julie. “Now give up the girl.”

“Changed my mind!” Leo replied.

Julie was angry. Not a surprised angry, but her suspicions turned out to be true, and that’s what angered her. She kicked her mounts sides and charged at the bad guys, brandishing her sword at them. They immediately turned and ran as soon as Logan was on one of his comrade’s steeds. And Kimi sat on the front of her captor’s steed, struggling to get herself off as best she could.

An idea crossed her mind. She slumped forward, almost hitting her head on the deer’s. When Leo bent down, she promptly sat back up and whacked his head with hers. Leo screamed in pain while she jumped off the steed, landing in a ball as Julie rode past her.

The enemies turned around and charged back to get Kimi. Julie held her sword out and swung it at Leo. She missed as Leo ducked. Kimi could hear them coming towards her. She started to run in the direction she thought was to Kaitan, but the Jungle Dude got to her first. He quickly grabbed his knife and cut her wrist binds before removing the blindfold and gag. Again, she groaned at how bright it was, but was relieved to finally be free of the binds.

Unfortunately for her, Kaitan kicked his steed’s sides and rode in the direction of the attackers. He lowered his spear like a lance and rammed it into the straw armor of one of the oncoming attackers. The spear didn’t penetrate his armor, but he was knocked off the deer steed as it kept running towards Kimi. The Australian girl did jump out of the way in time, and the deer came to a stop somewhere close to her. She watched the deer, and the deer watched her. And watching the Jungle Girl and Jungle Dude do battle with her kidnappers on deerback, she got an idea.

Julie had yet to teach her how to communicate or work with animals. But there’s always a first time for everything and if she had to start working with animals, it might as well be now. In her haste, she lunged at the deer, but its flinching stopped that idea.

To make matters worse, a cult member rode up to her, scaring the deer away until its original rider chased it down and got back on. Kimi was more disappointed and annoyed at her luck than despairing. Especially since Julie rode up to her and stopped right next to her. “Get on!” The Jungle Girl ordered. That was enough for the Australian, and she climbed up onto the back of the deer.

Julie’s skin was soft, but soaked with sweat, and it was awkward having to hold on tightly to the Jungle Girl’s midsection. “Have you ridden a deer before?”

“A horse!” Julie corrected. “It’s close enough!”

Kimi didn’t have time to respond. Julie rode into the melee and slashed at a cult member to knock him off his deer.

“Julie, let’s go!” Kaitan shouted as he rode past his mate. Julie kicked her mount’s sides and followed close behind.

“DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY!” Leo shouted, despite his comrades’ annoyed expressions and they gave chase. With their headstart, the Jungle Trio rode back in the direction they came from, with the cult members in hot pursuit.

Kimi’s heart pounded, and she could feel Julie’s pounding as well. More sweat caked Julie’s skin and Kimi’s buckskin top. She looked back to see the cult members in hot pursuit. Kaitan let Julie take the lead. She urged her steer on. He ran as fast as he could, despite Julie’s efforts and urging, and could not go any faster. Julie angrily hissed not at the deer, but at her misfortune at the gaining cult members while Kaitan looked back and groaned as well. He urged his deer steed on as well and caught up to Julie.

But it didn’t take long for the cult members to catch up to them. Leo rode up to Julie’s right side and reached out for Kimi. Julie pushed his hand away, but he reached for her again. The deer weaved away from the pursuer and got a little burst of speed from the decline in the ground and the wind blowing into its back. Leo shouted at his steed and he followed not long after with the same decline and gust of wind pushing and pulling him closer to Julie and Kimi.

One of the other cult members rode up to Julie’s left side and grabbed Kimi’s wrist. The screams of the Australian girl were right in Julie’s ear and she turned to her left to shove the attacker away. He let go of Kimi’s arm and that allowed Kimi enough time to thrust the heel of her palm into the attacker’s nose, hard enough to destabilize him on top of the deer and he nearly fell off. Kaitan lowered his spear and using it like a lance, knocked the attacker off his mount.

Julie drew her sword and swiped at Leo. He reached back for her sword. She pulled it away and whacked him in the armor, almost knocking him off, had he not had a tight grip on his reins. He angrily reached for Julie’s hair, grabbed it and pulled hard. She screamed as he tugged hard on her long, messy hair, and he would have ripped her right off if she didn’t have a tighter grip on her reins. Kimi instinctively grabbed the man’s arm and bit him.

He screamed as she let go and spit out some of the bits of dead skin she’d got, but no chunks of actual skin. He looked and noticed she hadn’t broken the skin, but the bite marks were deep and hurt like hell. He angrily drew his knife and tried to stab at Kimi. But not before she actually stood on the back of the mount and jumped on top of him, knocking him off his steed.

The others dashed to avoid Kimi and Leo, who faced off in the middle of the field. Julie stopped her mount and turned around. She slashed at one of the cult members and knocked him off his steed. Kaitan followed, raising his spear up to thrust into Leo’s body, but Julie held her hand out to stop him. Looking at Kimi and Leo, he could see why.

Kimi bared her teeth and glared at Leo, all while on all fours in a feral and wild manner. This made Leo gulp in nervousness and Julie and Kaitan watch with pride. It was obvious that modern civilization was becoming a thing of the past to her. And though she wasn’t exactly there just yet, there was no turning back for her. Still, Julie could see a little bit of fear, nervousness and doubt in her eyes as she circled the opponent.

“Don’t be afraid!” she called out. “Let instinct take over!”

“Ha!” Leo scoffed as he drew his knife. “This should be easy!” He lunged at her. She braced herself, but he knocked her over and thrust his blade down upon her face. She grabbed his wrist and struggled to push his arm away. As this went on, Julie and Kaitan re-focused their attention on the other cult members, who’d attacked them. But, Julie did ride past Leo and kicked him off Kimi.

That allowed Kimi to savagely growl and jump on top of Leo. She bit, clawed and stabbed at her former captor, turning from a gentle Australian girl into a bona fide, feral jungle girl. Now Leo’s eyes were filled with fear as he desperately tried to get away from her savagery, but she was not letting him.

Julie pulled her sword out of a cult member’s armor and let loose a mighty roar at the surviving cult members, one of whom was still fighting Kaitan. The Jungle Dude let his own roar loose that spooked his opponent, prompting him to turn and run away as fast as he could. The Jungle Couple roared triumphantly before turning their attention back to Kimi.

She was stabbing at Leo repeatedly without letting up for a second. He struggled to get away in vain, as in her feral state, she was in no mood to show him any mercy. This worried Julie and Kaitan, despite seeing her in this state. But once he started to wrestle with her, things change. It was obvious that he was a better wrestler than her, as he grappled her and shoved her to the ground, where he attempted to pin her and stab her. But Julie and Kaitan rode up to him and knocked him down off of her.

In the finishing touch, Kimi rushed to her feet and scratched the man’s face. He screamed until she tackled him and bit down on his neck before thrusting her knife into the other side.

Julie pulled her off and hid her eyes from the grisly scene. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home.” She lifted Kimi up onto her steed and rode off.

Their pace was slower now, and it gave Kimi a chance to collect herself after what had just happened. She felt sick to her stomach and let loose a liquid laugh before she knew it. Julie could feel her shuddering against her back. “Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I just killed a man,” she said with her voice quivering. “I just took a man’s life!”

Julie brought the deer to a stop and dismounted. She pulled Kimi off of the deer and hugged her tightly in an effort to calm her down. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Just let it out. It’s hard, I know. But you did good otherwise.”

She waited until Kimi had finished crying before she let go. “There, feel better?”

“A little,” Kimi replied. “How’d I do?”

“You did great!” Julie said with pride. “You really showed them!”

“Am I a jungle girl yet?” Kimi asked.

“Not yet,” Julie laughed. “But you’re getting there!”

Kimi was happily relieved as Julie threw her arm around her in a sisterly fashion and then helped her up onto the mount.

Though Kimi had passed a major test, her problems were not over just yet. And her first, big problem was heading in her direction on board a cruise ship at this very moment.


	12. A Chance to Belong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimi's lessons in the jungle finally come full circle and she faces her demons and future.

Kimi was allowed to recover from the shock of killing Leo for the next couple of days. Julie and Kaitan did their best to comfort and try to talk to her about the incident, but she wasn't in much of a mood to talk. Even Ginger, who, as a wild cat, came and went as she damn well pleased, crept into the treehouse to try and help her feel better. Alas, the cat's efforts were in vain, and just made Kimi shove her off her lap. The cat didn't appreciate that, but she was lucky the cat liked her, otherwise she was going to abandon her at the earliest sign of trouble.

She sat in Julie's nice armchair, staring at her knees and shaking hands. Her face was pale, and—oh, dear. Julie noticed her starting to retch. So she rushed to grab a trash can and got it next to the chair right as Kimi let out yet another liquid laugh.

"Hold on, I'll call the researchers," Julie said. "Maybe they'll have some valium."

"I don't wanna be drugged!" Kimi complained.

"I don't want to drug you up, either," said Julie. "I was just trying to make a suggestion."

Kimi groaned and pulled her knees up to her chin. The Jungle Girl sat on one of the armrests and held the Australian close to her. It was nothing romantic (SO GET THAT OUT OF YOUR HEAD), but just someone trying to comfort a friend. "Come on," Julie whispered. "It'll be okay. You'll be okay."

"I killed someone," she said for the fiftieth time.

Julie wasn't entirely sure if the girl was beyond recovery. There wasn't anything she could think of to say. But then Kimi continued.

"And he would've killed me."

Julie was surprised, and stared at the Australian. "What?"

"I could see it in his eyes," she said. "He hated me. And he wanted to kill me."

Julie leaned forward, her expression serious, but curious as well. "How do you know that?"

"The last thing I remember was my foster da' giving me the same look," said Kimi. It must've been pretty striking if she could remember something like that. "And I had to fight."

"Fight-or-flight," said Julie. "Adrenaline does crazy things."

"Have you killed people?"

Julie sighed, laid her head back, closed her eyes and winced. "Yes," she said. "I've never gotten used to it."

Kimi stared up at Julie, but also remembered the men she shot and stabbed over the past two days. She sighed again before leaning back against the seat. "Are you trying to justify your actions or something?" Julie asked.

Kimi shrugged and made a sound that was like "I dunno", shrugging to get the point across.

"Are you trying to explain it?"

"I dunno."

"So you think you'll be okay?"

This time, Kimi looked up to her and smiled. The smile was weak, but the look in her eyes carried the hope and determination Julie was looking for, which made Julie smile at her protégé. She weakly nodded her head, but it was enough to make Julie smile wider and pat the younger girl on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you," said Julie. "No matter what."

Kimi could not help but jump up and tackle Julie with a crushing hug. Julie hugged her back, whispering words of encouragement. When she saw Kaitan looking at them in envy, she motioned to her primal mate to come hither and join them. The Jungle Dude smiled and came over to envelope both protégés—one of which was his mate, of course—in a tight hug of his own. It was after 30 seconds that all three realized the cheesiness of this moment, though heartwarming, and broke apart in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

But it didn't matter to Kimi. Perhaps, for the first time in years, she had found a home.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

John dropped the empty beer can onto the table as Juan (with both having once realized that they have the same name, just in different languages) smothered his half-finished cig in the ashtray. "Blimey," John muttered to himself. He looked upward. The night sky was dark, and to his dismay, the stars were invisible. Not helping were the lights strung up all over the campsite and the bonfire about 20 meters from the two of them.

The lieutenant sighed and got up to grab another can of beer. He was visibly disappointed when he saw his favorite beers were gone, replaced by cheap American sex-in-a-canoe substitutes. If this was the best they still had, he was going to stick with soda pop, which he grabbed next. "I can't wait for supplies to come," he muttered to Juan.

"They just came last week," said Juan.

"I need better beer," John said, sitting down at the table. "I THOUGHT things would be getting easier, with so little to do, but I guess I should be careful what I wish for… are you ignoring me?"

Juan ignored him.

"So you are," said John.

Pursuing a conversation with Juan was going to be all kinds of pointless and fruitless at this point. His tent, which still contained the Jack Daniels bottle he confiscated from Gina, was a better option. He took a swig from a glass he poured and sat down with a really, really, bad Tom Clancy novel. Oh, those Americans and their adventure stories. Of course, Clancy was known for his accuracy on the military and espionage worlds, which made it easy for someone like John to appreciate.

He was mixing some of the Jack and soft drink when his satellite phone rang. "About time I get to use that thing," he said to himself, putting the glass and bottle down to pick it up. "Hello?"

" _Hello, John?_ " the person on the other end asked.

"Who is this and how did you get my number?"

" _It's Omer Turan and you gave me your number,_ " he said.

"Fuck me," John whispered and face-palmed with a smile. "How have you been?"

" _Been well_ ," said Omer. " _We ran into a storm on our way to Hawaii, but we're looking at clear skies and seas on our trip back to Australia. I hope it will stay that way,_  inshallah."

"You should," said John.

" _Also, did anyone wash ashore on Greystoke yet?_ "

"Why yes," John replied. "Her name is Kimi Fujioka. We recovered her cruise ship card with her. I suspected she was on your ship."

" _Ah, so it was her,_ " said Captain Turan. " _How has she been?_ "

"Julie the Jungle Girl's been taking care of her," said John. "I assume things have been going well."

" _Ah,_ " said Captain Turan. " _She seemed interested in her when I talked to her._ "

"And you should have seen her when she saw her," said John.

" _Fantastic. By the way, I was calling to see if she was there. If she is, I'll send her family over to Greystoke. However, we may have uncovered some evidence that they've abused her and have committed fraud, as well._ "

"And you're going to arrest her on an island without a government except the local tribes?" John asked.

" _We have a private investigator on board_ ," said Captain Turan. " _And we sail under the American flag. However, now that you mention it, we'll have them arrested once they return to Australia. I suspect it will be without Ms. Fujioka._ "

"I haven't seen them in days, so I can only assume things are going well," said John. "Very well, then. I look forward to seeing you. Are you going to pretend it's a scheduled stop?"

" _If the cruise line allows it_ ," said Capt. Turan. " _We're already late because of that storm. The passengers will be refunded. And I'll probably get it from corporate._ "

"Then start sending your resume out," said John.

" _I'd better_ ," Capt. Turan laughed. " _I'll see you soon?_ "

"Perhaps," John replied. "Have a good one."

" _You too,_ " Capt. Turan replied before he hung up.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Kimi had a strange desire when she woke up the next morning.

She sat up in bed, staring out at the jungle that was visible from the makeshift bedroom she was in and sighed wistfully. She got out of bed to walk to the window, where she stared outside at the early-morning mist hanging over the trees, obscuring the sun and making it look like it was going to rain. Even though it wasn't supposed to. Besides that, the jungle was alive with the sounds of wildlife she hadn't heard before (having assumed that the jungle was quiet).

Being around and trained by the Jungle Couple must be affecting her. She must be hearing things. Even Julie couldn't hear the sounds of the jungle, and she thought of herself as pretty connected. At the very least, that's what Kimi had seen. And she recognized, after spending time with the Jungle Girl, that she really didn't know much about her to begin with. Did that dissuade her? What do you think the answer is? That's right, it didn't. She mouthed something about wanting to know more about Julie as she laid against the window frame, looking out.

But getting back to her urge. She felt the knot in her chest. She wanted to go out into the jun—actually, that's what she's been wanting to do this whole time.

She thought about it during breakfast as she watched the Jungle Couple eat like civilized folk (a contradiction, if you might). Although, "civilized" kinda depends on the context, since tribal societies ARE civilizations, so eating like their Teo tribesman brethren with knives and hands counts as "civilized". Kimi looked at her knife and shrugged, taking some of the food in the plate by the tip of the knife and ripping off the rest.

"Kimi, what's wrong?" Julie asked.

"I want to go out," said Kimi.

"More training?" Julie asked. "I guess yo—"

"Alone."

The Jungle Couple stopped and stared at the Australian Sansei teenager. They looked at each other, and to Kimi's surprise, nonchalantly shrugged.

"Okay," said Julie. "You gotta be prepared, though."

"I know," said Kimi.

"But the big question is, are you ready?" Kaitan asked.

Kimi nodded.

"You sure?" Kaitan repeated. Kimi nodded again. "Look, I'm not doubting you or your abilities. I just want to make sure you're ready."

"I'm ready," Kimi said with determination.

The Jungle Couple looked at each other again. And Julie nodded. "Alright," said the Jungle Girl. "Let's see what you can do."

An hour later, Kimi stood on the porch of the treehouse, dressed in her castaway garb (including the Cal Bears shirt), bearing a utility belt, with her knife on her left hip and carrying a spear. Julie and Kaitan checked her over a couple times, making sure she had what she needed. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Julie asked.

"I'm positive!" Kimi snapped back.

Julie held her hands up. "Okay!" she said. "I'm just making sure."

"I know," Kimi replied. "Sorry for yelling."

"Kimi, I wouldn't be letting you go out if I didn't trust your abilities," said Julie. "But I don't want you to do something you'll regret later on."

But Kimi's expression was confident and determined. She nodded once again, gripping her spear tightly. "I'm not afraid," she said. It probably wasn't the best way of expressing it, but it was enough for Julie, as she patted the younger girl's shoulder.

"Then go get 'em," she said with immense pride showing on her face. Kimi broke into a run, running up to the nearest tree and started making her way through the jungle. "LOOK AT OUR LITTLE GIRL!" Julie pretended to cry. "SHE'S ALL GROWN UP AND GOING FERAL! Hold me, dear!"

"She's not our daughter," said Kaitan. "And I thought you said she was like your sister."

"I CAN BE PROUD, CAN'T I?" she replied. "Pretty soon, she's gonna be tearing it up in the jungle like a real jungle girl!"

She was scared.

She wasn't paralyzed with fear, nor was she terrified. But she was nervous. Her legs quivered with each step, forcing her to tightly hold on to the branch above her for support. Her teeth chattered, her feet felt weak and her heart pounded. She looked down (a bad move) and her sweaty foot almost slipped off the branch. She caught herself just in time, sighed in relief and looked up to keep going. She took a deep breath and continued to walk along the branch until she had the situation under control.

She couldn't use her spear to keep her balance. That's because she tried to use it, and almost found out that it wasn't good enough to keep her balance. But the branch she was on, while kinda thin, offered her enough balance. But she was still nervous when she saw that she had to jump across to another branch. Now she sighed in disdain. But she sucked her chest in while taking several deep breaths and crouching down to jump. She jumped!

And landed on the branch! She almost fell off, but she grabbed the top branch just in time. She sighed in relief (again), balanced her stance on the branch and crouched down. The animalistic, primal stance she was in now felt natural, and she smiled giddily. She could get used to this. A chattering interrupted her, and so she looked up to see an old world monkey moving about the branch on all fours. She watched him move and she tried to do the same thing.

However, the spear she had with her kind of got in her way, and she had to figure out what to do with it. Get rid of it? Or keep it? The answer to her was obvious, and she decided to keep it. So she gripped the branch with one hand and held the spear in another. She looked up to see the monkey looking down at her, but aside from that, it didn't care about her. It grabbed and ate some berries it found, instead.

She was unsure about what to do, so she instead sat down on the branch and brought her legs up to her chest, letting herself become immersed in the sounds and silence of the forest.

The sights of green and brown, the sounds of bugs, the occasional monkey, birds and bats, the scent of plants and… indescribable stench… the feeling of bark against the bare parts of her back and the taste of humidity in the air surrounded her. She wasn't moving, but she was entranced by the natural majesty and beauty of the rainforest. She looked down at her hand to see the pieces of bark that were still on her skin. A cool wind blew against that same skin, making her shudder—not because it was cold, but because it felt GREAT.

And that's how she felt now. She looked up and smiled, feeling the excited tightness in her chest as she laid her hand over it. It felt like she had finally found something she could genuinely love. She'd still have a place in her love for her parents, even her father—who will never wake up—but she knew that if they saw her like this, as happy as she was, they would be happy as well.

She was home.

Kimi Fujioka  _FIGURATIVELY_ died that day. She was no longer an Australian citizen. There was no other life to go back to. And though she wasn't quite there yet, Kimi Fujioka was dead, and Kimi the Jungle Girl was born. As she made that decision, she looked up, noticed a coconut above her, licked her lips and drew her knife. Might as well start right now!

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Julie found Kimi's shelter pretty easily the next morning. She'd built herself a simple shelter made of branches and leaves at the foot of a big tree. Evidence of a fire pit laid next to this little, humble shelter. There were also mammal bones that were scorched by the fire Kimi must have made, and her spear was tipped with a red substance that looked like blood. Empty coconut shells were littered about. Julie nodded her head approvingly and walked over to the entrance of this little hut, where she saw Kimi curled up in a fetal position, sleeping on a bed of leaves. "Rise and shine, Sheena!" she joked.

Kimi stirred and looked up to see Julie smiling proudly at her. "Congrats! You survived your first night!"

"I did?" Kimi asked. She smiled for a moment, then got up and ran off with a desperate look on her face.

"I'll wait for you!" Julie replied. "Gotta go that bad, huh?"

Kimi came back a couple minutes later. Her hair was disheveled and her skin was covered in dirt. There were no scratches on her, nor any bite marks. "Not bad," said Julie.

"Thanks," said Kimi. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to check up on you," said Julie. "Seems I didn't need to!"

Kimi's giddy smile widened and she rushed forward to hug Julie tightly. Julie returned the hug. "I'M SO PROUD OF MY YOUNG APPRENTICE!" she faux-wept. "I think I'm gonna hurl!"

Then Kimi let go. "Sorry," said Julie. "I was thinking about taking you to the Teo village today to introduce you to the tribe. What do you think?"

"It sounds good," said Kimi.

"Great!" said Julie.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

They went back to the treehouse and gathered Kaitan before setting off to the seaside Teo village. They rode their new deer steeds through the jungle, although Kimi decided to get off and walk for part of the way.

It was along the way, they stopped in front of a particularly cute little creature, a rabbit the size of a house cat. Kimi's eyes glowed in awe and amazement, and she stepped forward. But the rabbit changed its stance. Its ears were pointed up and facing sideways. Its two front paws were spread out and it looked generally tense. As Julie leaned forward against her steed's head, Kimi watched the rabbit until it relaxed and hopped away.

Neither Julie nor Kaitan said anything, but the smiles of pride they wore spoke volumes. And Kimi was giddy.

Awe replaced giddiness when they reached the village. This was the first time she'd seen them, and though she had met a cult, this was the first time she got to see the native tribal society. She walked forward on autopilot alongside Julie and Kaitan's deer steeds. She barely noticed the two women coming up to her, taking the steeds and placing a necklace of flowers upon her until one of them gripped her arm.

Looking upon the woman, she found that her smile did not carry the dark, hidden… whatchamacallit… that the women in the cult had. Instead, it was a warm, gently, friendly smile. She wasn't much older than Julie, maybe 10 years older or something like that.

But she couldn't understand what she was saying. She could make out an "aloha", and that was it. "How are we—"

Seeing Julie and Kaitan effortlessly talking to the people who greeted them answered her question before it was even asked. "Kimi, this is Mona and Kana," said Julie. "They're sort of like a two-person welcoming committee for the tribe." Mona and Kana asked Julie what she was talking about, and Julie's response made them all laugh. "Come on! I want you to meet the rest of the tribe!" She took Kimi by the wrist and followed Kaitan onto the beach.

She met Tim, the once-possessed former researcher who, through that possession, came to learn the Greystokian language. He acted as a third interpreter for Kimi. Then she met Kame, the village medicine man and shaman, who showed her his hut filled with medical supplies that, according to him, rivalled the equipment used by the palemen.

"They call it 'primitive' technology," he said dismissively. "But, you should have seen them when I performed a successful surgery without the use of their tools." His smugness confused Kimi, but behind her, Julie and Kaitan shook their heads. Then they grabbed Kimi and took her to see the village.

They showed her around the rest of the village, seeing the fishermen at the seaside first, some of the warriors in the middle of a training exercise—and Hilo and Kaitan had an impromptu wrestling match that made Julie roll her eyes and mutter something about men and testosterone—and some of the older women, who took a liking to the Australian girl. Oh, and the younger women, who were about as old as Julie was, also took a liking to her. Kimi even noticed one of the cute tribal boys nervously checking her out.

Then Kimi could feel the atmosphere change. It felt regal and important. She felt Julie grab her by the shoulders and turn her towards a man coming towards them. He looked like a Hawaiian chief or something. She gulped as the man walked up to her, and made her shrink with his mere presence. And the judgmental stare he gave her, with his height not helping one bit. Yeah, he was much taller than her, and it only made her nervousness worse.

Chief Manti skeptically regarded the young pale-ish woman, even though Julie and Kaitan appeared to be very proud of the young woman. "Chief Manti, this is Kimi," said Julie. She and Kaitan bowed.

"She is the palewoman I told you about," said Kaitan. "She was also kidnapped by… them."

Kimi noticed the Chief's interest. "She is?" he asked. "What is she doing here?"

"I've been training her to become a wild-woman like I," said Julie. "Right now, we're just introducing her to the tribe."

"In that case, Aloha, Kimi."

The Australian was surprised and looked at Julie, who just smiled reassuringly to the girl. She also didn't know how to react when Manti patted her shoulder.

She spent the rest of the day with the Tribe. They redressed her—the castaway look was gone, replaced by tribal Polynesian attire that, once she got a look at, she found it to be much, much, MUCH better than the castaway look, especially with the tapa-over-grass skirt. It befit her better than the castaway look. And Julie seemed to agree. The girls and young women also washed her hair and restyled it, making her hair look like theirs.

"I'M SO CUTE!" she squealed upon seeing herself in a mirror.

"You ARE cute!" Julie squealed, too.

The girls also taught Kimi how to dance, and some of the men and boys taught her how to fight and fish. The boy that had caught her attention earlier was one of those teachers. They both blushed each time they got a look at each other. One of Julie's friends, Lilo, whispered in her ear, snickering along with Julie.

Kimi was having so much fun that she didn't notice the boat coming closer and closer to the beach. It was only until everyone else was looking out to the sea that she noticed it, too. The boat landed on the beach and three people jumped out in a hurry. They ran all the way up to Kimi until they tackled her with a hug. But Kimi didn't hug back. They didn't deserve a hug.

"Kimi, we were so worried about you!" Joan breathed, an obvious two-faced intention if there ever was one. The Teo gathered around this horrendous family reunion, glared at Kimi's foster family and silently cursed them to having a thorn in their sole. They could tell, not just from the atmosphere, but from Kimi's expression, that she did not want to see them. Kaitan even had to hold Julie back from launching herself at the family.

"How on earth did you survive out here?" Henry asked. "Look at you! Come on, we need to get you back—"

"FUCK OFF!"

The Teo who'd gathered around Kimi may not have understood her, but her tone of voice spoke volumes. They cheered, while Kimi's foster family looked around and back to Kimi while stunned. "What did you say?" Henry asked, rage starting to seep into his voice. "I'll give you three seconds to—" He reached for Kimi, but found a spear pointed in his face. Hilo, Manti's lieutenant, held the spear and shook his head before turning with a smile to Kaitan.

"Kimi, who are these people?" Joan asked as she held Jake close to her. In the background, a man wearing a captain's uniform walked up behind them.

"These are the Teo," said Kimi. "I just met them, but they're so nice to me! Look, they gave me this outfit!" She spun to show it off. "Oh, and this is Julie the Jungle Girl."

"Hi," Julie said with hostility like Luther, Barack Obama's anger translator.

"Oh, you're the one Kimi was talking about," Henry said. "My name is Henry. This is my wife Joan and our son Jake."

"I've heard of you," said Julie. "Now, do what she says, and FUCK OFF."

Joan scoffed. "Who do you think you are?" she asked. "Look at you! You're filthy, you're hardly modest—"

"I happen to like this look," said Julie. "And what's wrong with a woman being proud of her body and wanting to show it off, huh?" She flexed her fit, toned arms at the family, noticing Jake was looking at her weird. "And Kimi likes it here."

"Kimi, what happened?" Henry asked.

Kimi told them everything. She told them about how she washed ashore about a two weeks ago, how Julie happily, although reluctantly at first, took her in to train her to be a jungle girl. She also talked about how she learned to survive, hunt, and most importantly, respect nature. And then she told them about the cult that kidnapped her, where she was forced to stay for like a day. She finished it up with how Julie and Kaitan helped her, how she helped herself and how she actually had a lot of fun on Greystoke. Henry, Joan and Jake looked on in disbelief.

"Why, that's demented!" said Joan.

"It was FUN," said Kimi.

"This is just her silly imagination," said Henry. "When we get back to Melbourne, we're taking you to—" he reached for Kimi and found more spears in his face.

"By the way, when the Teo like someone, they tend to be protective of them," said Julie.

"Kimi, what are you—"

"I'm staying here," she announced. "There's nothing for me in Melbourne. I love my dad, but he's as good as dead. And you know what? So am I!"

"Figuratively, of course," said Julie.

"I'm not Kimi Fujioka anymore, I'm Kimi the Jungle Girl!"

"She's gone mad!" Joan whimpered. "Henry, do something!"

"You heard the girl!" Kaitan warned. "She's staying here!"

"This is—"

"Preposterous?" Julie asked. "Listen lady, she told me all about you, and I can see just how bad you are. Now, please kindly FUCK OFF."

"Kimi, are you sure about this?" Henry asked.

"Positive," said Kimi. "I thought being a jungle girl was easy. It's not. But you know what? It's a lot of fun, and I've never been happier in all my life. And look at me! I look great!" Kimi's infectious smile and enthusiasm made the "family" nervous.

"Fine," Henry said firmly. "We'll go. Go and have fun in your savage jungle." His tone implied something else, and he led his wife and son away.

As they walked away, the man in the captain's uniform walked up to them and saluted Kimi. "Greetings," he said. "My name is Captain Omer Turan."

"Oh, I know you!" she said.

"Of course!" he laughed. "It's nice to see you again, Kimi!"

"So who are you?" Julie asked.

"I'm the captain of the ship Kimi fell overboard," he replied. "And I've heard of you, Julie. It's a pleasure to finally meet you." He held out his hand for Julie to shake.

"Nice to meet you too," she said.

"And you're Karza?"

"Kaitan, now," he said.

"Either way," Capt. Turan said. "So, I take it Kimi's decision is final?" Kimi nodded her head enthusiastically. "I see," he said. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!" she replied. Capt. Turan threw his head back and laughed.

"Well, I see she's made up her mind!" he said. "By the way, would you be willing to give testimony in a trial?"

"What kind of trial?" Julie asked.

"Henry and Joan are going to be arrested when we get back to Melbourne," said Capt. Turan. "We've already got them on tape talking about Kimi, but they're going to be charged with child abuse, endangerment and fraud. They're going to face justice, Kimi."

Kimi didn't answer verbally. Instead, she tackled Capt. Turan in a tight hug. The captain hugged her back and when he let go, he saluted her.

"How'd you know we were here?" Julie asked.

"Someone named Tim alerted John Tamou," said Captain Turan.

"You know John?" Julie asked.

"Of course!" said Captain Turan. "He's an old friend of mine! I'll be sure to keep in touch with you, Kimi. I can assure you that Henry and Joan will face justice." He saluted again, turned and walked away.

Henry and Joan looked curious on the boat, but Kimi could see Captain Turan being coy about it. But someone got in their way. It was Chief Manti. Julie and Kaitan talked to him about what just happened, while Kimi stayed still and silent.

Then, the Chief smiled widely and brightly, took the girl and held her close, while making an announcement to the rest of the tribe as they all cheered. "Julie, what—"

"You're part of the tribe!" Julie announced proudly. "You're going to be initiated next week!"

Kimi's smile broke wide and she cheered along with him. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, Kimi had finally found a place where she could belong.

_The end_

**Author's Note:**

> Hooray, another Julie story! 
> 
> First though, I want to apologize for the long description of Julie in there, but it popped in my head in a way that I wanted to take back the Jungle Girl genre from perverts. As one famous jungle girl fan here once said, the reason for all these sexualized jungle girl pictures are because there are perverts out there who like women who are submissive. They like savages, just ones they control.
> 
> FUCK that! Give me a strong woman any day!
> 
> Oh, and I'm not sure if Kim is going to make an appearance in other Julie works. Since I don't really have a set canon for JtJG, I may not use her after this, and other aspects may change. Either way, hope you like it!


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